Seven Sins, Eight Questions

1. Pride

It burns like a small fire,
a little heap of warmth,
a small glow
that grows or fades,
comforts like a pat on the head
or a bowl of soup.
If it does not swell
in a conflagration,
can I keep it?


2. Sloth

Oh, to lie in bed,
feel sleep settle
as gently as the air
over my slack thighs,
my tired shoulders.
To stretch across the sheets
like a lioness in African sun.


3. Gluttony

I was hoping for sausages
and chocolate as dark as night,
for treats between meals,
before and after dinner drinks.
How much is too much?
The full woman begs,
Not another bite.
The hungry one says,
Bring on the cheese.


4. Lust

On to the skin, to the pleasure
of paradise, the garden of your body.
If we had to leave Eden
because we felt our blood rustle,
perhaps each time I touch you,
I try to return, to enter the lush darkness,
breezes rippling across ferns and arms,
playing like your hands in my hair.


5. Envy

I would walk in your shoes, sleep in your bed,
sit at your table, and eat your bread.
I would bask in your glory
like a cat in a square of sun on the stairs.
I would relish the tin and tinsel,
the suckling pigs,
and then I might see
all the pokes and jabs, the back stabs.
Here I am in your shadows.


6. Anger

How not to see fire in the face
of a great wrong,
or be blinded by fervor
instead of plain blind?
If I see red, blood has been spilled.
If I burn, it is with visions
of Hell, footprints licked by tiny flames.
If I swallow my rage,
that is my crime.


7. Avarice

Would you begrudge a woman water?
A tap, a sink, a house to put the pipes in?
Would you deprive her of a chair
by a window, a warm oven?
How about flowers in a patch of yard,
a garden for herbs and zucchini?
What of an acre of sky, a dog in the grass,
food in the cupboard. Would a book
seem too bright—or even pearls?