The lights in the hallway

Have been out a long time.

I clasp her,

Terrified by the roundness of the earth

And its apples and the voluptuous rings

Of poplar trees, the secret Africas,

The children they give us.

She is slim enough.

Her knee feels like the face

Of a surprised lioness

Nursing the lost children

Of a gazelle by pure accident.

In that body I long for,

The Gabon poets gaze for hours

Between boughs toward heaven, their noble faces

Too secret to weep.

How do I know what color her hair is? I float among

Lonely animals, longing

For the red spider who is God.