By Richard Mather
And when the Devil called for the direct
treatment of the thing, I saw at once
that if words are to be as things,
language must be manmade.
And when he called for the other sex
to be remade as objects, I went
further and converted an entire crowd
into a bough with blossoms.
But why 'apparition,' he asked.
It's hardly a thing at all.
And ‘petals on a wet, black bough’,
sounds too pastoral, unmanly even.
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