Janie
(Archival Nights) I loved your cries
when I pushed you
passed your edges
and you flowered out,
sparkling . . . The way your skin
when touched
glowed warnings of a heat,
a fever of Mars fire
under my hands—
its faint blue flux sign
of births coming
incandescent into the air. And from your lips
I heard your moans
moving sounds—
the music of moons
arcing off-world,
of fish singing under the seas,
and awful creatures you were taming
and teaching to say Yes! And your eyes! —a calliope
of browns
in a high fallow field,
the soil so rich,
so softened with rain,
sex hung low
like a mist of fingers
grasping in the grass,
and so honeyed in the spring
deer came in legions to mate,
and banquet
and bare their young. And your scent! —of Eve’s,
leaving Eden in tears—
her hyacinth and rose,
anise and clove,
so wounding the winds,
the Night knew the Earth
had bound the Moon
to comfort wolves
and all things wild—forever!
And it remained
for hours on my skin—
a ghost!
something silkened and unseen
—the breath of your body
on my fingers
that I could call
and you would come again
in a tide of lights,
an aurora in my nose! And you were wet that night!
flowing in that film,
that slow
deep flow of waters
from ancient springs and wells,
that I knew they had come—
Those nymphs,
your sisters from Arcady!
to protect and bathe
and anoint your body for love. No wonder
my body broke
and wouldn’t work,
so astonished I was by yours!
stretched out like a star,
like a nova that night!
—by this genie,
this Janie,
who stopped time! —Charles Whitt —TOP OF PAGE— | 
