She stole upon me as the curved light of the evening
mounted the ladder of the stars. Thigh-white and small
as re-pressed flowers her ******* upon my arms became a
silent impulse and the impetus that strove between
the crushed grass and the risen stem, tight like the angle
of a kestrel’s wing; and unaccentuated by the glitter
of the sun, her night was an unfolding and reprieve of
warmth hastened no less by the peculiar reticence of
paler stars, hung like a cross from the white throat
of cloud awaiting the kaleidoscopic brightness of
confetti, and the marriage bells.