The way your skin prickled -tight- over your hips
and the plunking -wet- noise of water
                   forced out of a cave
are what I remember about that December, lovely, oh, lovely.

Your -blonde- hair rippled and shook loose
with each ramming pulsation and throb -stab-
but your hair -curled- tight was rough. -Unmoving.-
                below,       dripped More, now, more.

Your toenails felt like ice -pink, red, buff- on my calf
they drew dragons between the forests of my -leg- hair
circling around, bumping –bruising- and chanting,
                           Be full, full.

Until –after- we lay limp and glistening in -love- dew
the floors creak and winds scratch -outside- too loud, -empty-
   but,
                     We, -thought- *we are whole.

Look, stranger, at this island now
The leaping light for your delight discovers,
Stand stable here
And silent be,
That through the channels of the ear
May wander like a river
The swaying sound of the sea.

Here at the small field's ending pause
Where the chalk wall falls to the foam, and its tall ledges
Oppose the pluck
And knock of the tide,
And the shingle scrambles after the ****-
ing surf,
and the gull lodges
A moment on its sheer side.

Far off like floating seeds the ships
Diverge on urgent voluntary errands;
And the full view
Indeed may enter
And move in memory as now these clouds do,
That pass the harbour mirror
And all the summer through the water saunter.

It is autumn; not without
But within me is the cold.
Youth and spring are all about;
It is I that have grown old.

Birds are darting through the air,
Singing, building without rest;
Life is stirring everywhere,
Save within my lonely breast.

There is silence: the dead leaves
Fall and rustle and are still;
Beats no flail upon the sheaves,
Comes no murmur from the mill.