I

The hand that greets his is gloved in fawn.
Still, the touch is damp, a woman's touch,
something fervent in the palm. her smile
is modest, revealing nothing more than Welcome,

nothing more than Please sit down. Her mouth
is delicate. he had forgotten the deep ravine
of his heart, forgotten the well a tender thought
could sink. What are the boundaries of desire?

The widow's body strains against the ribbons
at her waist. her breasts are cordoned and bound.
He is like haze waiting to lift as he slips
between two worlds. He rows to the ship alone

in a gentle rain. he is afraid, not of
the night, but of the longing in his thighs.
His ribs ache like Adam's. he wants to undo
her combs, touch the russet flame of her hair.

He means to be concerned with other things,
but here he lolls on the receding tide,
a suitor at the threshold of his will,
prepared to give himself to this small fire.

II

From the mountains, butterflies move south
before the fall. Nectar still drips from summer
lilies, yet they lift themselves away, sail off,
a flicker in the stained-glass migration of wings.

Now he has come to her chamber, to stand behind her
at the window, smelling her hair. He has washed
his feet for her. She has perfumed her hands.
Now they touch. She is the dance they feed on.

The roof of her mouth is wine. They are each
the vineyard, each the vine, encircling one
another like the whites of eyes. His face
combs the forest of her body, all mandrake,

cinnamon and myrrh. He kneels above
the latitude of the world. Her ear is
a pomegranate, his tongue is an arrow
from a bow. They are becoming other

than themselves: she is the ocean, he, the sound
of wind. She is the earth, her lips breathing
across his eyes. When she wakes, the valley
he has left in her pillow will smell of waves

Barbara Helfgott Hyett