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TOWARDS DAWN
At the hour that night tilts
towards dawn, she stands
in her foggy shift and stares
at the window. A star squeaks
like a bat. Or is it a ship's siren
leagues beyond the cliffs?
Or a shore-bird climbing, seeking
the first light? The bones
of her feet are cold. She turns
but cannot take a step.
When I came that August, the air
swelled in the curtains
like a cello chord, and her room
was the color of apricots.
Henut, naked, danced.
Across the dim marble of the floor
the statues stare back at her;
she cannot meet their
pebble gaze. Is it her own breath
chatters like wings
in the shadowy alcoves? The stone
heads, under their Roman coifs
and wreaths…
No, she was never naked. She
kneeled on the bed,
her underclothes damp with sweat.
Get me some white
stockings, she said. I need
white stockings; I need discipline.
Her lips were like metal;.
her adagios I imagined.
I was a chair, a cup, a clock.
Behind her, over the sea,
the sky has filled with a wheeling
of grey birds, and all the lost ships
of the ancient world
rock on the leaden swell,
calling, calling. But she cannot
see or hear. A small hour strikes.
   
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