The autumn junket to Onogoro

and the cabin under siege by storms

intent to command the night

as they had the day –

Within, on headless bed,

adrift swirling and turbulent cloth,

you played

     (aptly)

   the Borghese,

cast in obsidian permissiveness

and velvet demand,

bibbing wine out a bowl,

in beads and scandal adorned,

and ivory-pinned braids,

(an apple at hand)

biesting bathed and cat-lapped,

seraphic, serpentine, and impishly cocksure

(A study in contrasts carried like your infrequent earrings

in lobes as delicate as pads on newborn toes

“Half the princes in Italy have thought to run me through

with their pretty poniards.”

“My hands are rather versed in the Mustard Seed Garden and Palladio’s quatrain; so take to your fours, and let free your murmuring breasts.”