Harmonizer

I.

there is no ghetto like the heart.

the girls grew up
into men,
and caught (aristeia) fever,

but words catch in their throats

(just guesses.
his breath leaps up- )

and down goes the hypersonic incense,
wormwood liquor of the lawless,
like music-born kisses,

and pries that absence
open like an oyster.

II.

_ won't elaborate
on the pornography of the moon,
        or how he caught a hair's breath
between his lungs,
_, who brings sundaes
on sundays,
        and to whom the clatter
of a heart standing up
is like
church bells in Florence -

but the glitch:

III.

an operative, a life-long agent,
you kneel here,
hearing your own secret retort:

there is no ghetto like the heart.