Yet this is a vessel of opposites,

In coincident both healing draught

And poison, celestial bird and chthonic serpent –

Even in the night’s thick tar

The round of her mouth is maelstrom; whorls work

Confusions, disarray; contrary motions

Drag deeper, drag deep, yet turn

And turn away; the mind is confounded by

Directional feints and errant rearrangements,

Indecipherable motions of the bed,

The sheets’ conspiratorial evasions.

is the touch is the tremble is the look of

is the desire is the soft is the need is the pulse

Once, to fulfill a charge – and to chart

For once and always madness, lust, desire,

Delirium, obsession, fear – I circumscribed

Our bed; bid Sophiel: confundante qui

Me persequuntur et non confundur

Ego, pavescant illi et non ego;

Set azure candles at seven points; lit

Red at four; brought her unadorned

To lie upon new and white wool.

is the heat is the give is the offering is the invitation is

is the door is the passage is the unfolding is the opening

In ward, to hone my concentration, thrice

I drank elixir distilled from the knowing,

Asleep as much as still to hear her breath,

Of a slumbery crawl, the soft drag of breasts,

Her awkward weight finding ease upon me.