As under the tiptoeing arches of her
smile he sheds his unrest his longing
mellow and song-spun the wide summer
leaves tremble green and fresh with dew
guarding love in the blessed evening cool
and keen as a knife touching the skin
burning his flagship in the weak
wonderful moment of happiness drowning
his soul in a million fathoms in her pale
destiny as she draws him down into her
warmth tracing her features indelibly in
the palm of his body to smooth the edges
of his grief it feels forever.
And so through the mirror of love they
pass into the flooded hour of belonging
unmasked by the sad and wedded line of her
smile leaving a hard core of memory sweet
as a nut as the underground centuries
roll into their tomb where she kneels
grasping a slender thread stretched
between her fingers a thin smear of dust
not even left with the comfort of an
unturned stone and he wrapped ever so
gently in his grey paradise with her
figure crouched behind his sealed eyes.
By the window of his one dumb room he
watches the night perched upon the city
like a three-cornered hat cherishes the
angle of light under the black rim
vanishing while she who invented this
night sleeps in the fitful shadow of her
dreams waiting for the kiss at the sound
of morning to melt the winter in her
summer veins the shadows already
unfolding their wings and in the palm of
her hand she discovers his prayer that he
may enter her finally to devour the darkness
feasting upon their lips.
Roger Collis 1961-2000