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-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.