Eva Beatified

TURNER CASSITY

EVA BEATIFIED

Sra. Peron's body, embalmed in 1952 "to assure absolute corporeal permanence,"

in 1955 was removed in secret and buried in the River Plate-ar

Hieratic horseflesh, marble wings,

The mighty monuments uphold in parks

Their superheroes out of comic books.

David impersonators, for whom slings

Seem reticules, they guard the patriarchs

The Jockey Club dependably erects.

Inert, they pass in strenuous review

Before one mightier, which is not there:

A mausoleum so ornate, so sheer,

Existence would betray it, as those few,

Whole stories tortured Babel from its air.

. It is ambition naked of its sphere.

She whom it holds, the pharaonic, nickeled

Exhibition, terminal forever

And the half-Lenin made whole, gives over

What she is to be as she is cycled.

Emptied, filling, she is still the mover-

Will the plated needles cannot sever.

Freed, her other selves attend her. They,

Thick necks made classic by the Psyche knot,

Once entered one by one their muddied fate.

The Ewigweibliche in gold lamé,

Ayesha trusts the flame and so is burned;

Eve mistakes the viper for the fruit.