Nymphs among the reeds. We found
a book of master-drawings
(couplings in the antique mode)
and I promised her
the artist's studio. But
I mistook the road and we left
the city for a cobbled lane
between barns, a lane
that became a track trodden
into a meadow. A rusted gate.
Cow dung. There was no
going back. No forgiveness
for a way forgotten.

Sleek from the tub, she
meets herself in the narrow
doorway of her mirror,
a newcomer. Below, the general
sits at the table and stares
at his eating-irons.

In the ceramics gallery
she paused before a cabinet
of delft. Look, she said;
my grandmother had the same.
Why is it in a museum now?
Because it's beautiful
and rare, I said. Outside,
through the city grey with snow,
the trolleys hurtled blind.

The general is frozen
in his khaki robe. Her wet skin
wears the gauzy prints
of morning, its pastel
fluttering. It is not
the same light that nails his hand
an inch from his iron spoon;
it drapes her hip
with the pink of the tiles,
smoothes her calves with the green
of the linoleum, loops
the undersides of her breasts
with darting rhinestones
of tub-water. The radio
blurts the news, and his fingers
find the haft of the spoon.
Mistress! he roars. I need to eat!

When I returned to the gate
alone, I found her feet had left
long streaks, riverward, upon the dew.