At Baia
I should have thought
in a dream you would have brought
some lovely, perilous thing,
orchids piled in a great sheath,
as who would say (in a dream),
“I send you this,
who left the blue veins
of your throat unkissed.”
Why was it that your hands
(that never took mine),
your hands that I could see
drift over the orchid—heads
so carefully,
your hands, so fragile, sure to lift
so gently, the fragile flower—stuff—
ah, ah, how was it
You never sent (in a dream)
the very form, the very scent,
not heavy, not sensuous,
but perilous—perilous—
of orchids, piled in a great sheath,
and folded underneath on a bright scroll,
some word:
“Flower sent to flower;
for white hands, the lesser white,
less lovely of flower—leaf,”
or
“Lover to lover, no kiss,
no touch, but forever and ever this.”
