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-tipped
arrows and dried cherry jerkin
and quiver, and cherry scenthound—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.