Murk

But of course you'd like to fuck Ophelia

Isn't that the whole point she asked
Her own skin as white as trout belly
& nearly as translucent in the liquid light
The moon let slide into her window

Just imagine me like that she said
The emerald-&-silver bed of slime beneath me
The sickening water lapping at my thighs
But unlike your floating Ophelia

I'll be naked      my hair a damp red fan
& even the flowers of my nipples will calm
Beneath the lily pads as you bend over me
Anxious to spread my legs until the whole

World of my death draws you to its embrace

David St. John

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David St. John has been honored with many of the most significant prizes for poets, including an Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the O.B. Hardison, Jr. Poetry Prize, fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the Rome Fellowship in Literature, and a grant from the Ingram Merrill Foundation. His most recent book is The Red Leaves of Night (1999). His work has been published in numerous literary magazines, including The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Poetry, The American Poetry Review, Antaeus, Harper's, and The New Republic, and has been widely anthologized. He has taught creative writing at Oberlin and Johns Hopkins and currently teaches at the University of Southern California. He lives in Venice, California

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RL