At the Far End of the White Light

Clear white
the width of a crack
in the pure black.
Across it you walk on tiptoe —
you!

Quiet and white as a woman’s poetry
you stroke his hair
and his infatuation gives a start,
having sensed your love
so quietly stroking him.

And shame sets out across his cheeks,
red, that he was not so purely white
as to love you without fear
before your love could
begin to put him to shame.

But you will forgive him everything,
and most of all that he will always
begin his night with you.
Even the one in which he’ll see
a small and distant speck
of clear white
like a crack.

2007