Night-flesh, clear-borne,
where the wounded jut of dusk’s clavicle
and the holiness of your folded thigh
on a manifest of dew

are enough.

Evenings should always be dewy, you said,
and you wore the words like vestments
that clothed your thought from me.

This time of day, I said –
this time of day and this very field
are at fault for so much bad poetry.

Everything worth writing has already been written, you said.
I won’t try, then,
to paint the trawling fleet of dawn
that drowns in search of your fiery eye,
or to breach nature’s hull
with your beauty.
I won’t whet my clumsy knife on the river-stone
and carve your name into the water.