You were remote as the gods, a shadow,
and I had become a statue
in a garden, lovely but brittle.
Marble lips never moving,
not even in prayer. Separated from dream

by the curtain of morning, I was
a sleep walker, more dead than alive.
Until a wind change. A riffle in the leaves,
a swirl of dust, and something lifted.
It could have been me; it felt like you.

Now night covers our embraces
tangled in the sheets. A fine sweat
rimes our bodies. We move
by touch, not sight, and find
in that blindness a way with each other.

All my thirst slaked in your kiss,
a distillation of stars. All your treasure
unforbidden. The beast they said you were
tamed and beautiful. Each word
a whisper. My hands grasping feathers.