above all others.
Please keep it at your finger tips as you sleep,
on the far side of the bed,
so that I must reach across your warm bare skin
in seeking it.
I admire crows
more than any other bird.
You have stolen them,
all of them,
so that your hair against my face
becomes a night composed from a million dark wing beats.
There is a house,
a small house,
I have seen in my dreams.
You were there, my love,
asleep in a cloud of small swirling bodies,
the most beautiful woman I have ever seen--
with a book half open at your finger tips
as if it might, at any moment, speak your name.
_______