moon three days new: wedding nights

moon three days new: wedding

nights

your coming back,

your touch at my velvet and velour,

before the black cotton bole of night

is split—is—is—awaiting

a bridegroom

but not before, in all that dark,

the first whispers to the second

and it's like a single finger

of fire touching the next

finger and on and on until

the whole field is lit with it,

until the coincidence of a newing

moon peals back the laboring

and reveals, after days and days

of solitude,

a soft puff surrounded

by barbs—and isn’t it

always the way with her

to tuck what’s sharp

beneath all that velvet so that when

it's reached for there’s a little

stab and insertion is a drop

of blood sucked away,

and another reach and another

prick until the whole field of snow

is picked away

and all who are swollen
 soak their hands and feet in the old

remedies and smile and sigh

and know it all to be…