Nameless but not without a face.
Faceless but not without a voice.
Voiceless but not without a name.
Confident as epiphany she sneaks
Through a secret door right
Into the chamber of my dream.
In the morning her footprints shine
On the uneven floor
Sprinkled with the ash of the forgotten.
Here she turned, here she paused.
Here she hesitated, I think. Covered
The same way again. Here she found
What she came for.
Cold like a Turkish oath,
Detached like Caucasian whores,
Her insatiable hunger
Prayed
On what I had left
For my very own gods.
My thin gods too weak to unhunger
The crowd on the hill;
My dumb gods too clumsy to help
An occasion with a wine problem.
If she be taken
A-back to the city
Of seventy names
And hidden
In the darkness
Under a ladder,
In time
Her union with herself
Could become
The leading creed,
For as we all know
The small of the east
Never miss and never repent.