Black to White
(London/Turkey 1964)

– then, quiet in the wall
moved along by paraffin lamps
you left for a keyhole of glass;
your ribs and breasts, quite clear
beneath its constellations,
slid behind two strangers’ hands.

Knit from cicada chains
to where the earth’s rim
stitched the sea to white heat,
we knew it already from flickering leaves…
your hairs’ final arousal
blackened the Turkish sand.