Stooped and papery faced, she pauses
in a door's invisible frame,
in the young man's ambiguous grip
saying, "You are bruising my arm,

I bruise easily," and he waiting
for the making up of her mind.
"My things," she says, "I need—

where are they?—my things,
the ivory comb, the mirror
with the young girl's face in it."
And his fingers slacken, dust

on the cuff of his dark uniform,
above the Gulf of Policastro
the moon's crooked finger beckoning.

Decorously, his thin smile
is saying, "I drew the ivory comb
through your bright hair, I held
the mirror, your skin was

indeed like milk, I tasted who
you were, your long light steps,
avenues, corridors, narrows."

"I cannot leave without my things,"
she is saying, her hand on his arm,
walking out under the damaged sky.
As she gathers the salty air

around her, there is a splinter
of emerald in her yellow eye,
a petal on her mottled wrist.