Lover
use the night on me
kiss the stars goodnight
and ask for pillows of darkness
silently to cover us

Lover
unravel my imagination
knowledge is not a prudent guide
at the edge of intimacy and
sharing

Lover
unless you promise my name I'll
keep my guard up
arming my sensuality with
swords of adultery

Lover
us as individual as two
kinds of stars
all you can see is
starlight

Cold cold young Daedalus
Marked out by a two of hearts
—But as you had remarked
There is no such thing
As a one of hearts—
Put on my Icarian wings
And the wax will be
On your golden head
Your maiden head
Sealed off by its substance
Below the swirls and billows
—Resembling ebony
Snow down covered—
Upon your pitiful soul

Let me be the renegade
Ocean child’s remembrance

But halfway down the
rainbow of inequality
it is still orange
between extremes of hot and blue

lightning
thunder
the shadows pale
the dust aroused by a raindrop
the whisper of a golden brown thirst
deep and primitive

I had never felt the cool mud upon my bare skin

smooth and moist promises pulsed deeper
a cascade of beautiful pearls went down into my desert
my instinct half shrank from its supreme joy
the sand became misted with invulnerable kisses
and yes ... the touch of this wet embrace
makes me want to shiver and hide
makes my belly quiver with soft silence
blossoming with orchids and clean white lilies
full of gentle perfume and glistening honey

then ... from a far cliff
he suddenly plunges into me
I as defenseless as fragile spiders
my cry suffocates the desert and

then dawn refreshes me
so delicately

     And I would wander around in these streets, thinking, "What about this sky? What about these concrete walls? What about this tear in my eye? It's only dust." And had we still been apart, you would have said, "I don't want to think about it. I just want to creep and cuddle away."
     You'd cuddle into someone's mind and sleep the dreams of the ignorant. You wouldn't have noticed the strangeness of passers-by as I would now. And the beauty of one woman whose eyes are suddenly drawn to a window that opens on some fifth floor and sets free a wonderful song. As she and I would both forget what had been waiting for us, we would have to drink in that song, blending our lives with each accumulating note. And then, as the first warm, heavy raindrops touch our skins, and Peter's hand shuts us out, we would part without looking.
     But you who are now a part of me might not have been aware of all this. If you would just once slip out of my mind, I might remember everything. And I would recognise that look caught by beauty in those womanly eyes, if I wandered alone through the streets of this September city, and sang the song that had climbed out of another life to ours. And that would be because for one single, immeasurable amount of time, that woman and I would have been one thought, as you and I never will be. But would the memory make any difference?