First, I had had a thought so unnerving I went cold all over, in the  heat.

What if I love this man, whom I hardly know, more than I’ve loved any

other man, and at once I was a water fountain,  at  grammar  school,  in

the hall, a bubbler, I was bubblering, I had  turned  into  a  water-bearer

who couldn’t bear but blubbered her water  with  gulpy  blubbers  on  a

hot summer day. Years ago, I had been a  sudden  desert  fountain  most

days, at old love’s fresh sudden end. And  now,  here  I  am,  again,  but

not in my cherryskin armor, again, not with my cherry  bow  and  juice-

—not that aging cherry Artemis again, it feels different, now, with  this

humorous curious man, I feel as if we  may  be  the  distilled  fruit,  the

liquor itself, as if I’m in the interior of  new  love’s  mouth,  I  am  safe,

under his tongue. And under my own tongue, look who you see—look!,

perfectly                    safe,                     it                    is                     he.