The flutes and the violins
whirl, and I close
my eyes and breathe
the hot smoke of her curls.

The horses were big-eyed
in the dark, nervous
at the reek of kerosene,
so I quieted them—scratching
their boxy heads, feeling
their lips nibble—
before I tossed the lamp
into the straw
and climbed to the loft
whence there was no escape.

The music stops. The dancers
stop. She releases
my hand, smiling,
and touches her hair.
Applause breaks like rain.

In a brown junkstore photograph
she sits primly
on a wicker chair, her
white-gloved hands crossed
in her satin lap; below her toes
is scrawled: Amitiés , Henut.

I swung the padded door
and followed her; she paused
to genuflect then went alone
along the nave, her heels
sharp on the stone.
Below the dome, where
the thick and pungent air
was sliced by a beam of blue,
she stopped. Someone coughed.
She turned to look for me.
From a dark confessional
there stepped a priest,
his sleeve pressed to his mouth.

A hundred years ago, a painter
painted her. She stood
beyond his easel in a low chemise,
white drawers.
A loose curl on her neck.. .
The room was filled with light.

Under the hayloft's soaring
vault, choked by the incense
seeping through the floor,
I huddle open-mouthed.
The dancers clap.
The horses scream. Her photograph
drops from my hand.