.
ave you eaten, my dear? Or are you sulking
with your usual questionable petulance? I adore
you; the first time I climbed Italy I planted
a red ensign, as exotic as your poetrykerchief is.
I wish our relationship even larger, even more unfurled,
until all the hidden stars on your body
split and bear red, breathing orbs
that as I pluck them would faintly allude
to something as crass as electricity, as
subtle as a pure, direct moment formed
into being. Doubt not what is done underneath.
In the magical smallness of privacy, become
naked even more, give me a refusal that
your dark hair must – please! – loosen somehow.
I repeat my questions. In the fragments of your
image sufficient refusal. I rest. My case
not adjudicable. God. God I desire you. Perhaps
is the Mighty Perhaps. I am sludge and water.
A beautiful Italian poet once told me that her
mother had taught her that all Italian women
are either Madonnas or whores. You, in perfect vision,
are either, both, neither, as the sun sets and rises.
Forgive me, my dear. I am a man.
Defined by the waxing of urges.
I melt you in my heat. I wear you,
sewn into my groin.
Under the open sky your prone star.
Under the open day you are limitless . . .
* * * * *
This week, we’re featuring a new collaboration between photographer Naama Sarid, whose work we’ve featured in the past. Naama has been kind enough to share her work with some of our other contributors, and they have been writing and creating based on her wonderful photography. This piece is inspired by Exposure № 071: Portrait of an Hysterical Murder. See Naama Sarid’s other Snake-Oil Cure contrubutions here.
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Michael Fitzgerald-Clarke is an Australian poet who lives in Townsville, Queensland. One of his present projects is a MS titled Five Faves, Five Least Faves. When it is finished, it will comprise one hundred dedicated poems, for one hundred people, who will each have given Michael their five favourite, and five least favourite, words. He weaves all ten of them into that person’s poem. Feel invited to take part. E-mail him your words to michael(dot)fitzgeraldclarke(at)gmail(dot)com. He blogs here. If Michael could have just one wish, he would give the wish away. His other contributions, and guest-editorship at Snake-Oil Cure, are here.
Dr. Hurley's Snake-Oil Cure 
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