To A Nose

By Francisco de Quevedo

There was a man
stuck
to a nose,
it was
a superlalive
nose.
a scribe-nose.
a nose/executioner.
the sword
of a very
swordy sword fish.

It was a sun
dial very
badly calibrated
an alchemist’s
beaker lost
in thought.
an elephant lying
face-up.
a more nosliy nosed
Ovid Naso.

It was a galley’s
battering ram,
a pyramid
from Egypt,
the twelve
tribes of Noses.

lt was an infinite
nosenosenose
so much nose,
no fiendish,
on Anna’s face
it would have been
a crime.