i have to start writing at a reasonable hour.

Your damp hocks pellucid in the late-afternoon
through the blinds and a tender arm at right angles
under the budded auspice
of a livid drawn mouth
and all your joints sweet cups like profiteroles
the shuttling fingers finally still
and if the sun darts at the holly
and dies in the deepening cloud what is it to me
your belly tender in downy vesture
and the soft haunch I return to again hollow-lipped hungry

for so many years I've turned a timid face up
to crowds of stars & the yellow moon sifting down leaves
and now in a broad afternoon studded with onyx I am red and keen
with fire in my two broad palms