Shot from the bow of his insistence,
flung into sunlight with a sound
like tearing silk, he touches her
mouth with his head. Her tongue is
flicking. Already she moves away.

Now they work their heads like two
stones sparking, his length climbing
the stairs of her, sliding up until even
the thin tips of their tails are twining,
untwining. He is thumping upon her
to be let in.

He lifts himself from her body
and in the blackness his penis
appears, everted, unlidded, pink
as the underpetals of a rose,
the foam of his being pouring
from him into less and less.

They rest, coiled on one another,
her head lifted as a Sphinx.
They are wrapped in quiet
breathing. They are snakes.

In the grass, they wind toward
the hollow of a tree; the starlings
startled, flying outward one by one.
This is the graspable Eden, requited
in all of its urgings: Life declaring itself
in opposition - For me! For me!

Barbara Helfgott Hyett