MOON GOING DOWN

I have a dream.

      She’s in an attic room

with someone else,

hands in her skirt and that

dove sound caught in her throat

that I thought was ours.

She’s with him now, she bends into his kiss

– and when she slows his hand, they swarm

like bees,

a honeyslick, an

aftergloss of meadow;

easy and damp,

though not without a trace

of venom, they are pure

as animals and

selfless,

like the rhythm in the heat

that, now and then, mistakes itself

for hunger;

and blessèd, strung like pearls on molten wire,

to bell and cry beneath a hunting moon,

they come together; live; unwarranted;

a braid in every touch, a flame for longing.