“Loving his innocence was my first sin.” Fires, Margaret Yourcenar

This isn’t virtuous, only
human: purple veins in pale thighs
or darker ruddiness in deep plum.
The depths…the going down…
& it’s still a trapeze act, not
sure of swings, always, simply
winds or stillness amid
firefly flickers, though
touch is pure, stripping
methods, charades
to the sensuous.

Really, what’s the worst thing done,
the penalization, that salt,
that sweat of shame?

I taste none here, no sea but for the good,
the ancient mother & these droplets psalms,
small odes to first birth.

Nature: skin brings them genuinely,
a baptismal wash, in innocence
where we die a little & live,
for it is living –
the tired bones, the old sins not
undone but incorporated, forgiven
as you, in some way, forgive me this need.

I say do not. It is love, one
form of many, & not, none are sins
or acts, acts at all, because we feel,
& it is the trapeze
which may be the mirage.

Stephen Mead