In most intimate touch we meet,
Lip to lip,
Breast to breast,
Sweet. 
Suddenly we draw apart
And start. 
Like strangers surprised at a road’s turning
We see,
I, the naked you;
You, the naked me. 
There was something of neither of us
That covered the hours,
And we have only touched each other’s bodies
Through veils of flowers. 
But let us smile kindly,
Like those already dead,
On the warm flesh
And the marriage bed.

IV

The blanched stars are withered with light. 
The moon is pale with trying to remember something. 
Light, straining for a stale birth,
Distends the darkness.

I, in the midst of this travail,
Bring forth—­
The solitude is so vast
I am glad to be freed of it. 
Is it the moon I see there,
Or does my own white face
Hang in blank agony against the sky
As if blinded with giving?

V

Little inexorable lips at my breast
Drink me out of me
In a fine sharp stream. 
Little hands tear me apart
To find what they need.

I am weak with love of you,
Little body of hate!

BRUISED SUNLIGHT

WATER MOODS

RAIN ON THE SEASHORE

Curling petals of rain lick silver tongues. 
Fluffy spray is blown loosely up between thin silver lips
And slithers, tinkling in hard green ice, down the gray rocks.

White darkness—­
An expressionless horizon stares with stone eyes. 
The sea lifts its immense self heavily
And falls down in sickly might.

The emptiness is like a death of which no one shall ever know.

SHIP MASTS

They stand
Stark as church spires;
Bare stalks
That will blossom
(Tomorrow perhaps)
Into flowers of the wind.

MONOCHROME

Gray water,
Gray sky drifting down to the sea. 
The night,
Old, ugly, and stern,
Lies upon the water,
Quivering in the twilight
Like a tortured belly.

ANTIQUE

Clouds flung back
Make fan-shaped rays of faded crimson
Brocaded on dim blue satin;
Through the wrinkled dust-blue water
The little boat
Glides above its sunken shadow.

ECHO LOOKS AT HERSELF

The ship passes in the night
And drags jagged reflections
Like gilded combs
Through the obscure water. 
Spun glass daisies float on a gold-washed mirror.

SPELL

In the dark I can hear the patter. 
Bare white feet are running across the water. 
White feet as bright as silver
Are flashing under dull blue dresses. 
Wet palms beat,
Impatiently,
Petulantly,
Slapping the wet rocks.