Bathed in the unrhythmed light of a new day
you are here, along with the bees and new rose-buds,
a smooth white flower I could cup in the calyx of my hands
(or a poppy garland which you drape around my waking limbs).
Is it true that you existed before the smoky stars,
wrote your name in the sweltering bowl of the east?

Heavy-eyed bees hum to your harmony,
tapping into your sublime currents at my open window.
Naked as rain, the sun rose without thorns,
without blemishes into the fat-limbed suckling day,
blinding the stars with brumes from burning dew
and the butterflies resurrected themselves as ghosts of long-dead dawns
pale as the graves of children who had no names,
all sucked into the hollow hungry stomach of the morning.

The first wind blows at the reluctant birds
snatching song and geranium petals onto our bed,
bloodying our brazen skin like furious fishes.
Uninvited, the day took off its morning clothes
and, breaking fresh bread, shared all it had with us
because you had not gone.