Possum Idyll
       

From beyond the patio's aureole
it stared at me. It became she,and she
conformed to rules of Tudor portraiture:
pointed chin, black eyes burning,
white-faced little sister to Donne, to our
new, the handsome, Shakespeare. Worried, too—
by the land, the lads, the lazy servants,
her love for the parish sexton holding
the keys. Their velvet burrow, the golden trees.
Oh, how he loves her rat tail, her long lace cuffs
of black, the way each night she sneaks another
morsel in his lap. Carriages await her
but she doesn't care. Her aimless lord
is ruination but forsooth tomorrow
is sufficient. Evil waggles but not
tonight. Venus winks in the sky.

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Copyright © 2012 Diana Lueptow All rights reserved
from Beloit Poetry Journal
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission