- Her lover moves across the room,
- easy, slow, focused,
- still damp from the shower,
- ambling toward the closet
- where his soft clothes hang.
- She can feel the corded arms
- that frame his long, sculptured body
- as she watches from the pillows, smiling lazily.
- He steps into the square of sun that falls
- into this quiet room high above the park
- and all the light is caught in one place—
- a small stroke of gold on his hand
- drawing her eye, catching her breath
- with a wonder she can’t explain.
- .
- The room fills with armies,
- fleets and expeditions
- setting forth again and again
- to find and, if needs be,
- steal this ore from wherever it is
- in the rivers or in the depths
- of the deeply veined earth.
- They told you in school
- it was for the wealth, the power
- but she’d never understood why
- any metal could be so treasured
- why it was worth the dangers
- they faced, the price they paid.
- .
- Now she was sure they went forth
- because they wanted to hold in their hands
- the sun’s glorious presence on earth,
- and when their hearts were full,
- to melt and shape its beauty into forms
- that graced and warmed their lovers’ bodies,
- as did the glowing ring that
- she now remembered
- marked this beloved as her own.
