The Windlover

I caught your cadence, cooed in another’s voice—her choice of clauses
Cleaved with air, there! the twin of your tattoo, which clip-clops
Down the cobbled pitch of a cathedral tone—that yours alone: how it drops
In caverns of caramel and buckles stone. Tempo, pulses and pauses
Beating fresh between the terms, the rhythm draped on the stranger’s verbs, flung
As high as a bird unbound, each sound unwound and set to soar
On the winged wish of the word—I almost heard the thrumming reeds that moor
The silken syllables you swirl in the world behind your tongue.

Not you, I knew, but each trace chased, each collage cut collected by hand
One more mote of the wild winter that whirls
From the bursting pane of glass. And my love has lit each shard with a band

Of light so rare it colors the numbing night—and the coming white pearls
Of snow. So my heart hears the hum, the substance and the sand
Of you, not you, you, Osiris in the dew of a thousand scattered girls.