The Red Lacquered Box

Christ’s words are crimson
As your paper curls
That spill, quilling
On your opaline neck,
Cathedralled unabashed
In velvet azure.

Milk-glass, you daub
Jeweled fingers into
The marble font,
Coolly ruffling some pool in me.

My mouth, my craft
Is too small to ride
The river that is rising.

The cloth of me too rude
To glide with your satin
Through woodruff and violets,
To trace your eyelets and taste
the warm cakes of coriander
and orange.

I duck behind shadows, edges,
Catching fast my breath
That I might be graced
With the red lacquered box
Of your lips exposing
Such roses . . . . Such roses . . . .