She is other. When he
moves, he prints sunlight slants
into her dark, for he
traps all light, gathers it,

arrows it outward
to however far a page
into however dense
her dark. "It must be through

me," she says. "You filter
like brown rainwater
through my body's pungent
loam. You have fine hands, yes."

And - when he wakes at night
to the blank book
on the pillow and the dumb
can of the alarm clock—

it is to clutch his wrists,
fearing her severing, or
to risk no movement,
feeling her teeth at his neck.

It is ten years now that he
has not seen her, save
as a pale translucence
crossing the littered room

to his damp bed, looming
over him, her mouth
like moss, her breasts
like slippery stones.