A voice like weeping amber,
     dripping like a silver coin
     dropped onto a desert-scorched
     tongue, I hear him moan, his lips
     melting as my own near them,

pulse flattening and climbing
     our silence’s ladder, eyes
     falling and rising, glances
     like nails meeting a hammer,
     hands and breath crawling over

forms words without regret fail
     to pour into mouths his voice
     warmer than bronze fills, hunger
     vanquished like a thorn drawn forth
     from a soldier’s foot, thirst what

keeps us in this treasury,
     this moonlit sanctuary
     where swan-necked rivers of night
     bend, clouds lift their heads and let
     rush drowning streams of starlight

we wet our flesh in, showers
     of surrender where we lay
     our weapons each down, arms high
     as we tread on tiled floors paved
     by fallen angels paying

a debt no mortal soul can
     afford, mosaic tales told
     by coloured stones, cold warnings
     offered by prophets whose hearts
     burned long ago, before sun

fell sweating as it does now
     into waiting ears, its heat
     bright as virgin snow, hot silk
     my touch nears caressing him,
     I hear in dusk’s dusting tears

warming and cleansing from far
     within me all fear, crystal
     drops whispering poetry
     fragrant with a gemstone mist
     only two men can gather,

philosophers hard as oak,
     entangled in a single
     lather, all prejudice shed
     as together we shower,
     soaked, both our palms and throats full

as red pomegranates with
     seed that deep seas of kisses
     flower, my mouth praises him,
     the first man I would destroy
     the world for, had I power,

this is for him, for making
     me feel as though I did, that
     in having had him, bathing
     in hushed fire would make pure our
     one night we washed in pleasure.