The Wine Is Drunk

The wine is drunk, the woman known.
Someone is generous darkness dries
unmanly tears for what's not found
in flesh, or anywhere. He lies
beside his love, and still alone.

Pride is a lie. His finger follows
eye, nostril, outline of the cheek.
Mortal fatigue has humbled his
exulting flesh, and all he'd seek
in a loved body's gulfs and hollows

changes to otherness: he'll never
ravish the secret of its grace.

I must be absent from myself,
must learn the praise love's waking face,
raise this unleavened heart, and sever

from my true life this ignorant sorrow.
I must in this gross darkness cherish
more than all plentitude the hunger
that drives the spirit. Flesh much perish
yet still, tomorrow and tomorrow.

be faithful to the last, an old
blind dog that knows the stairs, and stays
obedient as it climbs and suffers.
My love, the light we'll wake to praise
beats darkness to a dust of gold.

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