Whilom seafarers in rapture,
seven minutes in heaven,
then nothing but bathos,
--a woman in bed,
she and Rembrandt quarreling
over fidelity or obedience to her king?

"It is I, Seagull!"

"Everything is fine. I see the horizon..."

Night sky, a blow torch,
a golden rain flowing between her legs,
curled in the veil of imperial lineage and/or arousal,
--ballistic arc,
peering into the hand mirror,
a breach of promise staring back.

"Will the flight
affect your reproductive organs, Danaë?"

"Conceivably...
and how they shall weep
when things go wrong between us?"