I begin to write and immediately
as if obeying an immemorial pact
the earth pulls away for me.
Shows me her full body—veined,
scarred, demure, ashamed. Too
pitifully beautiful in her naked
cringe and tuck of her legs. The
meaning of brutal honesty. Waits
as if expecting to be scourged but
shaking my head I gesture
no. In light darkness, sketch
true martyrdom.

It is nightfalling. That is what it is.            
Like hands, interlocking,
spoken as ashen clay infolding
to a dome their clasp over a flame,
covering it. To hold—not extinguish—
and if extinguished to travel on
in smoke. It is that. That covering
over the flame, the capturing of all
warmth and light from all that is
around. I try to get above, over,
around. Before I slip into bed.

To cup over the flame
my self, my life, this hour. And her.
Try to round all as home
or hearth above the nomadic flame
that mocks what I gesture, and shakes
vigorously its own vacuum.
As if heaving in rib-tickled laughter:
Who do you think you are!
laughing, doubling over, cracking
its sides.

But I do not forget my hands.
I do not regret my hands.
What they can do, above a flame.
In light darkness of mine, I can laugh too
and write—above, over, around
and she, relax her trembling skin.