“To me you are but a distant unreality,
an unattainable river-boat sailing away
to horizon,” he says. With a few yearning strokes
she paints the air crimson and gold; a new conflict
pressing around his temples. She looks steadily beyond
dark curtains of his piercing eyes, her lilac gown
open in the front to a quilted knot. Six pulls
at the uncertain threads, and he could
strain extensive beats of a heady Arcadia
stretched out to meet dashes of turquoise blue.
He restrains a smile, lurking like an offender
behind dewy mouth, blowing fitful shreds of warm light,
traversing his rusted needs she writhes like a serpent
wrapped in twigs and thorns.
“The mishmash of a saint and a satyr,
I was always yours. Always yours to keep,”
his voice penetrates honey-slick archways,
fingers in hair tracing her name, the one he called
the most beautiful among women.
There’s softness of moonlight,
harshness of midnight, pleasures of wooing,
brutality of pinnacles, thrills of familiarity,
something and everything, shocks of delight.
Fragile and decrepit, squirting clamour and heat
she was lying in wait to come alive and be young again,
“Darling, I missed you,” she says. His voice
transforms into a fleshy mouth, his cruel teeth
engraving savage melodies on her rhythmic heart,
their supple earlobes curling like lotus-petals
in the wanton glow of approaching daylight.