The War On St. Valentine -- Part The Second

Galway Kinnell could have me. He could have me and he wouldn't even have to play his cards all that right.

Rapture by Galway Kinnell

I can feel she has got out of bed.
That means it is seven A.M.
I have been lying, with eyes shut,
thinking, or possibly dreaming,
of how she might look if, at breakfast,
I spoke about the hidden place in her
which, to me, is like a soprano's tremolo,
and right then, over toast and bramble jelly,
if such things are possible, she came.
I imagine she would show it while trying to conceal it,
I imagine her hair would fall about her face
and she would become apparently downcast,
as she does at a concert when she is moved.
The hypnopomic play passes, and I open my eyes,
and there she is, next to the bed,
bending to a low drawer, picking over
various small smooth black, white,
and pink items of underwear. She bends
so low her back runs parallel to th earth,
but there is no sway in it, there is little burden, the day has hardly begun.
The two mounds of musucles for walking, leaping, lovemaking,
lift towards the east -- what can I say?
Similie is useless; there is nothing like them on earth.
Her breasts fall full; the nipples
are deep pink in the glare shining up through the iron bars
of the gate under the earth where those who could not love
press, wanting to be born again.
I reach out and take her wrist
and she falls back into bed and at once starts unbuttoning my pajamas.
Later, when I open my eyes, there she is again,
rummaging in the same low drawer.
The clock shows eight. Hmmm.
With huge, siilent efforts of great,
mounded muscles the earth has been turning,
She takes a piece of silken cloth
from the drawer and stands up. Under the falls
of hair her face has become quiet and downcast,
as if she will be, all day among strangers,
looking down inside herself at our rapture.