The House
When I met her by chance

she was a woman whose lips and braids

radiated.

She plucked a flower from my ribs

and flew to the fountainhead

where she built her house from its shining silk.

When I kissed her,

she ran like a gazelle

shimmering across God's open country.

I said, " Who are you, mare of the water?"

and she said. "I am queen".

When I embraced her

she engulfed me with her waves

and lit my spirit's stars.

I said, "Who are you, velvet flower?"

She said, "I am the down of the nightingale,

the milk of kisses."

When I gave her my sweetest embrace

and performed my ritual prayer,

she stormed through me, through every cell and vein

and erected on my dead body

a house for life.