ox-eyed

The universe frays into nothing at its ends and hums 
        a song     of waiting
        in the splendor      of stars
as she takes out the stitching of the nebula in her 
hem. She's about to give up, undress, pour a bath. 
Atoms within her have done so already. You, perhaps.

She removes an earring and sets it on the edge of a 
worn white swirling table: a gold sun and nine lesser 
stones that shimmer     like a lure.

*

One day, a woman tells a man she's given up smoking 
and turns him—like a child, like many children—out of 
doors so that she may rest. The woman drinks the 
relief of the traveler in a glass of cold tea.  

The train to the woman's door takes the man to the
ends of the earth. The woman has harnessed herself to 
her window and spun a cocoon from dark matter. She 
will live for others but has died for him.

     The man remembers

she took his hand so suddenly, her other hand around
the muscles near his shoulder as though a wind 
pulled her away

                                          to the ends.


*

Ox-eyed, the bringer of fire bears wood to the kiln. 
An unknown figure sets a tea cup, draws a miniature
in gold of the yard without. Winter, and look, even 
the beast that draws the cart.  
     An engine for intimacy. 
One day, he will close the distance between his body 
and his gaze. He will sweeten his breath with 
marjoram and mount the steps of the china shop.  
     Cold porcelain, warm blood

the pristine confusion     of her hand in his.