On the dining table, she served
herself up: two hands stretched
to the ceiling as she circled
her hips above me.
Then she pressed
her palms straight up
and became part caryatid,
part walnut tree, holding up
the vaulted sky. My eye
was on the intertwining thing
that shook and rooted her.
I wanted the secret of that
gyration, abandon, as
disciplined as a plinth,
a pulley and lever that could
move the world, when she
wanted, or hold it at rest.