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Prima Donna
That first fellow’s enate fall
Adumbrates
The quainter limp of all
Who amble from a lifting yard.
But it was agnate she —
She — not he
(and this quite privily)
Who made the limping hard.
Winds of warm rain rose in the cognate vein
And she — she
Foresaw anon that crystal tree
Struck down by withering contumely.
She
(Of whose eye you the bruising apple were)
Can never be the crucial bane,
For she can hold apart the close-lipped eye
In/to which it’s fruitful (once) to die.
She became she
By taking on opacity.
Thus becomes
A girl who snatched the figleaf from the bough —
The rib who calls fumbling forth
Him who thus attains.
(And unconcealment’s how and how)