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The Kitchen of Francesca and Paolo

Inferno, Canto V

See the toast? I come vending a vile pirogie
in mossy lavatory to overhear: "O animate fiancée,
a benison on your parlor. Alter no nearer!"

F. queers the qualified Columbian disco
& the cons’ jollies: all’s humidor or a dulcimer nightly.
Venturing from her lair, drowsing potential vowels,

on the coattails of her ushering sire over-dowdy.
Annoyed, Paolo purloins malignance
if for a day you affect his greed. She:

"O animal gracious and benighted,
cheer our visit–drop your viper leer, purse
not your nosey ligature. Ill mundane grand guignol,

we are an oily faucet in the do-re-mi universe,
a pregnant noise. Lose me, Apache,
& I’ll pose a high pie to melt perversion.

Detail this genuinely cheap parlor of patches
without udder demo or parliament of voice.
Menthol vented: come far, see touch."

He: "Cyanide terror dives nattering free,
sues our marina clover, po-faced descendant
of our infernal consanguinity.

And more chalk. O gentle rats, apprehend
present costumes, the bell in person.
Choose food totally. A la mode anchor offends?

Then more: channel tomato and mar pardon,
me a pressed constituent, pizza fortified.
’Kay, come ready, answer no abandonment.

It’s said Cain attends his vital suspense.
A quest for parole and dolor, the führer portal."
Quandary intestinal! Well, animation offers

a Chinese visor, taunts the ill tennis buffoons.
A finch boater, she hissed: "Que pasa?"
Quintessential riposte, come in: "O lasso,

can’t dolts pencil in, can’t dizzy
men castrate all malodorous parasols?"
Poor meat ravioli, lore & party on.

He continued to communicate: "Francesca,
ye toed martini–a lachrymose me is fanned & trysted.
Ma, gimme: the tempo teams & dulls me, suspirated.

Key of C, a come coincident, a moray
keel connoting incest & the eels’ dubious desire.
A killer of me: maggots nestle in the Lord’s hay,

the ricochet shades of Vegas, my valise
tra-la-ing this area. Achoo! You saw duelling doctors.
My sad concierge sniffs the primo radish,

dug nostril & more to high contented affect,
the dear old cocaine kablooey, a pee-angel & bitchy.
Legitimate noise is unjoined per the deeds

of stilettos at the luncheon, humming more low strings–
a sole Geronimo sans alchemy is suspected."
Francesca snarls, "Sure, & Liberace singing soprano

quells lectures and sciatica. Tiramisu
muscles a bunt, fuckin’ ’ell, jejune rinse,
I wonder–lemmego!–you ill dizzy riser,

essay avocado your macho old Monday?
Testy Gemini, dawn no field’s mi-fa-sol,
but book my Zuppe di Paolo in tutu tremble hottie."

Galley-ho fun liberal, cheered by low squeaks,
he bells the door, no–peers more. He’s the legume avant-garde.
Paolo: "My mistress, my chef, your dissenting spirit

alters peers younger, sings cheer to piazzas.
I’ll ventilate the cousin under me: Maurice!"
The caddy comes corpulent, a mortal cadre.

Joshua Corey



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