Switched on Gutenberg: Volume 6 Issue No. 1

Switched-on Gutenberg Vol. 6, No. 1


The Price Sin is a serpent: you get what you pay for. Lust coils. Remember, you get what you pay for. These mountains sun their backs. August swelters. Second skin, clothes stick. You get what you pay for. Air's touch, a sigh on sweat, as clothing rustles. Grass has its own tongue. You get what you pay for. Loins: the moon is there, and older ways, cycles Knotting in the gut. You get what you pay for. Elders, deacons, and preacher tame the devil By power of faith. You get what you pay for. A bee works the honeysuckle's mouth, its song Nature's voice. Listen. You get what you pay for. She, too, handles the snake with her hands: its strike Punches her stomach. You get what you pay for. Venom courses, the bite---nine month's of swelling. Periods missed, and you get what you pay for. Sin is a serpent: each of us balances Naked on its back. You get what you pay for. Coal dingy alley behind the doctor's house, Clothes rack, end crooked, red. You get what you pay for.


Poem Copyright 2001, Rufus Skeens	Dancing Nude Image Copyright 2001, Pamela Moore Dionne

The Price is a ghazal, an Urdu style of poem with couplets of fixed form. Following traditionally, the poet makes a reference to himself in the last line: "Rufus" means "red".	Pamela Moore Dionne studied painting through the University of Alaska Extension in Ketchikan, Alaska and with Mel Wallace at Olympic College. She is the founder and managing editor of Literary Salt which can be found online at www.literarysalt.com.