Classic Poem

Naked and knowing my heart my love had left on
only her jewels that clicked against one another, which
rich paraphernalia lent her the air of a conqueror, of a
Moorish slave at her best hour.

The brief, mocking sound of that shining world on her breast
as she danced, metal and stone sent me into an ecstasy, I love
those things where sound and light
meld in one intricacy.

She lay back then to let herself be loved;
high on the couch she smiled, satisfied if
my love, gentle and deep as the sea,
mounted toward her as though she were a cliff.

Eyes fixed upon me like a subdued tiger
unthinking, absently, she tried her poses
with a candid lechery that gave
new charm to her changes;

her arms and legs, her thighs and hips,
glossy as oil, flowing smooth as swan,
passed before my calm, clear-sighted eyes;
and her belly and breasts, grapes of my vine,

wheeled toward me more coaxing than evil angels
to trouble the rest my soul was set in, to un-
balance that crystal boulder where it sat at rest
composed and solitary.

The rounded buttock-globes of an Antiope
moved below her boy's back, her
hips flared so from the waistline setting it off,
the rouge glorious against that brown tawniness.

Now only the fireplace lit the room
and the lamp, reconciled to its death,
each time it sighed a lick of flame
it drowned the amber-colored flesh with blood.