The Rake's Lament

Remember the passion of the ankle,
Blanched and supple like glistening wet milk
Left shimmering, under morning sweetlight,
While the pasture girls sing under hay lofts.

How the rake’s impetuous mouth must have
Watered, tantalized by the odor and
fleshy rind of that white pear’s sashay as
it hummed upon the wooden portico.

There is something yet erotic about
Waiting at front doors, beneath snow and rain.

The carnivorous rapture of ankles
has dissipated across bodies of
young pasture girls who have forgotten the
dance because they have forgotten the song.

Just what could her moonskin say about love?
See it engender the genuflection.
Her feet the altar and the cross, the praise
To you—my sweet!—to you I kneel.