A cathedral waited in my mind
as I leaned over her mouth.
The shelves around us spilled
casebooks, encyclopedias, dictionaries.
I repeated the doctrine: a man should not
lay down with his neighbor’s wife.
Her dildo’s curved beak glistened
as it left my body.
The curfew on my flood
of shame was punctuated by her moan.
I heard a chorus in her throat, the bird’s ribs
snapping against her palate. She might have
spoken if not for my kiss, the fat sound
rolling around in my mouth like a jaw-
breaker: affirmed, allowed.
Had praise been the clitoris’s silky crown,
and not a bud of oak or elm.
Had the hymns been practiced by shaky
woman tongues we put each into each,
I would have sheltered here.