I.

In a white dress
she goes through all
the rooms of her house
like milky sunlight.

Years ago I learned: this
is not a man's world.
The walls, the ceiling,
the Corinthian columns
were all white, but the bed
on the dais, with its heavy
quilt, was blue.

The wedding-guests circled
formally, their clothing
rustling like papery bouquets.
Sequined in black
from throat to ankle,
a glittering rose nipped
between thumb and forefinger,
she mounted the first
parquet step. As her hem
lifted, I saw
the steely point of her shoe.

Even now, I am looking
over her shoulder
like an interloper. The sky
in the lily-pond
is a square of quilted blue.

At the bed's brink,
two girls, dressed for their
first communion, lifted
each other's veil and kissed.

The river is profound;
long limbs of golden water part.
I have drawn my fingers
through her hair. She does not
know me now.

When the blue sheets
were pulled up over the sisterly
brides, she moved among
the guests, a black fish
shimmering. The room
rippled approval
with a white clink of glasses.

II.

Mildewed frockcoats, bonnets,
corsets: between rack
after rack, she drifted
from the foot of the stairs.
The corridor was amber with dust;
the air was like old violins
or like lace curtains
that crumble at a touch.

We were born at the wrong times.
No disguise I might wear
would make her see me.

Children in creamy smocks
or high-button shoes and
sailor-suits were singing
their lessons.
Sweet sparrow voices:
There is a green hill
far away…

I can shape a home for us
out of thin air.

She took her own time, walked
her own way, at every threshold
touched by young voices.
I watched her
watching the numbers
above the elevator door,
seeing her eyelids flicker
like Saint Theresa's
or Euridice's
as heaven itself slid down.

III.

The green striated crust
of the tree-bole
gathers at its cleft
to a wrinkled scab, stained
with the black drool of rain.
Years of rain
have rotted the sisal matting
in the summerhouse.
The drab lace of a fallen leaf
clings to the back of her hand.

The tapered fingers
with their perfect nails
have dragged the dust, have stirred
the old chaos into galaxies.

The girls ran out from the shore,
high-stepping feet trampling
and hands scooping
the shattered water. A hot wind
lifted the edges of their towels,
as bead-ropes of light
slid from their oiled shoulders.

The twin wild boars, guardians
of the Northern Gate, rest
in the half-light
on their mossy hams.
Their tushes crumble in their
lifted snouts. The chains
and hinges are fused
into knots of rust.

Far out, the whales
were buffeting the white
waves, and we were dumbstruck
by their savage flukes.
I kneel
at the foot of the fouled tree.
In the undergrowth, the hounds
are belling. Yet I hold her there.

IV.

Ancient yet hugely fetal,
boneless as gloves,
they lounged
under their glass box-lids.
Out of the corner of my eye
I saw the stale curds of their flesh
twitch and bubble yellowly.

Silent couples in silk hats and furs
duck into limousines;
the palm-court orchestra
carry their fiddle-cases
down the darkened gravel avenue.
The brown walls sweated
round us as we shuffled
between the boxes,
our eyes wide and dodging.
From the folds of their
elephantine vaginas
they eased out
heads of withered babies.
The heads, the shoulders,
the wrinkled ribs,
they gripped them,
sliding them out and in.

The ceremonious union
of self with self
will be locked in the wedding album.

When she steps through
the sliding doors
of the elevator and crosses
the lobby, she is already barefoot.
Under the slender elms
at the end of the garden
she eases her shoulders
from the black gown, slips off
the underclothes,
and splashes through the dew
to the river. When I reach
the bank, she has entered
the shadowy eddies
under the willows' awning.