Before the sun picks them from the bones of Eden.
I say to her: “Those men are dead; it happens.
And threatens to press her heart into the ground . . .
Only my wishes distilled to vinegar and spilling out from me.
Their passions to each other in lawful silence.
“Lose your self in every sin known to man. Quickly! Quickly!
But I’m a carpenter. Not even a carpenter: a box-maker.
The slow cake of blood inside this heart, these hands.
My arm thrown like a shutter across her heart.
Murmuring the words and burning passions of her disease.
That God has given her and which I cannot understand.
Of His paradise to come.
A dark, tiny moon braced against the mammoth sun.
For what does not exist–everything else we have imagined.
In sacrifice to the wide, parched mouths of these dead.
Before falling, light and brittle, into her arms.
This is the truth, the burden of her soul.
No comfort softer than our sad and weary arms.
The endless cradles of my love.
Originally published in The Southern Review, Summer 1990 issue.