Her back turned on his primal nakedness,
her downcast eyes defy the gaze of the naked
woman, a fallen version of herself naked.
She reads aloud to gilt her loneliness,
rose rising in her face, the syllables
clothed in her clear soprano as the body
with muscle, bone, and sphincter clothes a void,
in garments rich and pure as nakedness.
The midnight velvet of her gown redeems
her own untouchable, her own un-
imaginable nakedness—bare arms,
breasts, belly, maidenhood in a golden grove.
Forever in her cloth of honor’s weave
a gold horse kneels, bearing its golden horn.