Pastoral
The egrets like whitecaps on the plowed fields
The treeline across the long way arched
as a blanket over a sleeper's hip,
and over the road, the bahia where the cattle feed
And the pale moon, still there because she cannot
bear to leave the soft slope of the pond
where they sat as the man's fingers moved lightly
across her wrist, although he has turned and walked
away, and is even now thinking of someone else, the sun,
more beautiful in her flame clothes.
And the pond itself, where desire's secret fish swim,
their spread tails swaying in the shadowed light
as now, under the clodded earth of fields something
stirs as if stroked and seeds open, release
and easily, and this is how it is and no one is thinking
of the young woman in the blue print dress,
how one leg twisted under her and her mouth turned
red as he slammed her against the wall, desiring her
more than he has ever wanted anything and they fell
together on the unmade bed, she tearing at his clothes,
and this was opening too.
Self Portrait- Light from the Left
A half-ripple
around the mouth as of
a stone thrown in Thin trails along
one slope of the nose Under one eye
the faint marks of the witch's broom... In the left light I am coming
closer.
And what I see remembers I would
sing the sweetest when the spots
were trained on me. Because
I could dream I was alone. But the rest of my face wants the dim.
It's the young woman's, her skin sanded,
the stone dust gentled gone, and sometimes,
waking before the sun, she feels a hand
smoothing her cheek, and she thinks if she
doesn't move, the moment will not end
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