You cannot know, dear young thing, the tenor

of my love, only

the tenor of my passion, caress, stroke,

this calm steeped blend

of parental best-yearning and selfish reward-taking,

all distant now,

steeping, letting go

as it takes you.

Yes, angel, you mine, we lovers, in soul, in truth,

know other in perfection though barely at all:

we may never see one another again, yet still

it burns all tranquility, secures us as we are

in the serenity of knowledge:

you, me, united by that bed.

You shall not know

your freshness, your ripeness that launches,

how your skin glitters with potential, bright and warming,

how right it is

that I

should take you,

keep you,

raise you,

though you feel the rightness

at the touch,

in the space of our words.

Yes, angel, cloy tightly round me,

ride thoughtless, your cloying rights the world

as sitars play:

rest calm in the life echoing from you to the future,

this string from this perch that I can see but you cannot,

cloy hard to this rock

amidst the battering,

unfathomable sea.  Cloy,

take me inside

as your father, and fill

the hole that haunts your brilliant sunny rightness.

Yes, angel, to all your questions, yes.

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