Nightfall

We have taken the night

like a Persian black cat

into bed with us;

your fingers stoking my body's heat

are the glittering red

glassware of my childhood,

are scents suddenly

remembered and pungent;

dark rivers under your hair

as under remote bridges.

I feel with my hands

The cool rain bark of your limbs.

Afterwards lying on our backs

like pillowed sovereigns

we decree space

and allow thought and the room's objects

to separate us;

abstract and personal

we turn

in the round cavity of sleep