XII
You are a well sprayed with cool rubies of sound
In which I bathe and rise with another skin
Like moon-stone passion slyly courting
The light breath of a tired dream.
I drop my heart into the depths
Of your disheveled serenity,
And stroll off empty.
When my heart has merged to your shades of pearl quietness
I return and once more drop within you.
XIII
The mellow anger of his hair
Disputes his sleepy girl’s face.
His robe glows like a painted wound
Upon the bent meditation of his body.
His hands are so thin that silence bruises them:
Thin from the pressure brought by endless prayers...
When you were with me I did not know
That your voice was pouring him out in molten colors
To be shaped by the fingers of my memory—
This prince-made-of-many-deal-loves.
XIV
Sometimes jaded, sometimes tranquil,
Your eyes invade the tumult of your face.
Your lips are the remnants of a love
That made a sunset-cup of your face.
The movements of your body
Caress the couch you sit on into sound
That seems to answer your words.
You are restless because upon this couch
The cold touch of your lover lies
And seeps into you, reaching your heart.
XV
Your arms, in faltering crescendos,
Wander through the room
Tinted with expectation of night.
The room seems a tottering tomb
Through which you roam with hands
Striving to press each form into the shape
Of someone buried beneath you....
Only when night sprays the room with his breath
Do you change to that which you seek.
XVI
Two walls, dizzy with rain-touch
And suffused with gauzily amorous sunlight,
Creep over a hill and meet.
And so our foreheads touch.