Dark hair dropped forward, shoulders
sun-rubbed to copper, Henut
in white shorts
is sitting on the crest
of the waterfall, white water
surging out between her tanned thighs.

Henut Wedjbu, gingerly I set out
the champagne crystal to attempt
to touch the tune of your name.

From Brussels I took the express
to Holland. The carriage
was filled with feathery voices. I asked
a girl, brown as a violin:
Where does this train go to? And she
answered: We're all going
to the Pea-shooter Festival.
But where? Which town?
Next stop, she replied, laughing.
I had wet rags in my hands
and nowhere to hide them.

In the gallery they are hanging
a show of photographs, photographs
of walls. I move to the next room:
in the scorched shadows
hieratic urns and vases, blue
and green and rose,
smoulder behind glass panels.
My sandaled feet
are soundless on the dim parquet.

Henut, you sat across from me,
gazing at the rush of landscape,
your dress lifted and .
your legs apart. Ik spik neit hollands ,
I said. But your eyes were lost
in the brilliant blur of tulip-fields
that striped your sunglasses. The words
slipped from the streak of your lips
like glittering spittle:
Do it for me. I'm dry.

Below the museum walls I sit
among lopped trees
and spit out bloody cherry-pits
into a paper bag. When Keats died
blue petals fell from the ceiling
into the white radiance of his gaze.

Mostly, I stay at home and play
with names and tunes, watched by the dog.
But today I found your postcard:
there you stand before a looking-glass,
shrouded from head to foot
in crumbling papyrus, but in the mirror
a girl of crystal, webbed
with bones and veins and yellow gristle.

In the Holland express
you were covered with a sheet.
I made a scalpel-slit
and opened a wound in you no man could staunch.

I mastered the lurching glass-walled corridor.
Which town? I asked.
Next stop. But when we reached
the station, and I stood,
the girls stayed in their seats.

We had no use for speech.
The poet withered in the painter's arms