Betrayed when you drift to sleep,
I’m wide-eyed on the shore
of that most inviolate sea.
The run of the body beneath my hands,
I’m uninspired to trace or repeat
that geography to my senses, or to shape
any new thing
upon the innocence of your shoulder.
My fingers and my eyes, instead, compose gay songs
on the deaf piano of your spine.
A distant fugue in your dreams, my dear?
Or a gavotte
with a smart, gloved lady?