She is a tress of hair out of place,
combed in slow sweeps from my forehead.
I thought her an enigma to perchance unravel
by the press of well-paired lips
or by a mind besotted with moon glow
and Grenache wine;
one wicked with wisdom.

Saccharine words stirred into woody coffee,
I, Whitman, imagine her
the chill of Robert Frost
clung like sugar grains to my Leaves of Grass.

Almandine eyes of the nine Mousai
revved up by unbridled inventiveness…
I twinge too much to hold it inside,
she triumphs beyond the rim of her vessel,
so our ache and exultation
steal past the musing sentinel of apprehension;
and leap from once dormant imagination
into spirit shadows and splendid motifs.

She is a stranger to all,
but to those whom she whispers as lover.
We, two strangers of sun and moon,
curl nubile into night
to take our nuptials at dawn.

One hundred million miles and
one earth between us;
now bound as one, we pull the tides
into an unexpected tempest in my heart;
a tender act of indiscretion
undoing a tame, near tepid, bearing.

Thus muse and artist
feast upon the provender of providence
and all delectable in between them.