>Jersey Bauble, or Your Mother’s Daughter

It likes us well; young princes, close your hands.
-Shakespeare, King John II

how well and noble to drink
from these rough cupped hands
far ferried of, she rethinks
ill from foreign sands
this stiff and sour cure
her painted lips tilted toward
warm tongue, numb tongue
in rush, and rush again, the breath rewards
pendant lung, expanding lung
her atrophied detour.