The morning of the equinox
Begins with brassy clouds and cocks.
All the inn’s shutters clatter wide
Upon Fair Umbria. Twitching at my side
You burrow in sleep like a red fox.

Mostly, these weeks, we toss all night, we touch  
By accident. The heat! The food! 
Groggily aware of spots that itch 
I curse the tiny creatures which 
Have flecked our mended sheets with blood.

At noon in a high wind, to bell and song,  
Upon the shoulders of the throng, 
The gilt bronze image of St. So-and-So  
Heaves precipitously along. 
Worship has worn away his toe,

Nevertheless the foot, thrust forward, dips  
Again, again, into its doom of lips 
And tears, a vortex of black shawls,  
Garlic, frankincense, Popery, festivals  
Held at the moon’s eclipse,

As in their trance the faithful pass 
On to piazza and café. 
We go deliberately the other way 
Through the town gates, lie down in grass. 
But the wind howls, the sky turns color-of-clay.

The time for making love is done. 
A far off, sulphur-pale façade 
Gleams and goes out. It is as though by one 
Flash of lightning all things made 
Had glimpsed their maker’s heart, read and obeyed.

Back on our bed of iron and lace 
We listen to the loud rain fracture space, 
And let at first each other’s hair 
Be lost in gloom, then lips, then the whole face.  
If either speaks the other does not hear.

For a decade love has rained down 
On our two hearts, instructing them 
In a strange bareness, that of weathered stone.  
Thinking how bare our hearts have grown 
I do not know if I feel pride or shame.

The time has passed to go and eat. 
Has it? I do not know. A beam of light  
Reveals you calm but strangely white. 
A final drop of rain clicks in the street.  
Somewhere a clock strikes. It is not too late

To set out dazed, sit side by side 
In the one decent restaurant. 
The handsome boy who has already tried  
To interest you (and been half gratified)  
Helps us to think of what we want.

I do not know – have I ever known? – 
Unless  concealed in the next town, 
In the next image blind with use, a clue, 
A worn path, points the long way round back to  
The springs we started out from. Sun

Weaker each sunrise reddens that slow maze  
So freely entered. Now come days 
When lover and beloved know 
That love is what they are and where they go.

Each learns to read at length the other’s gaze.