You're jealous if I kiss this girl and that.
You think I should be constant to one mouth.
Little you know of my too quenchless drouth.
My sister, I keep faith with love, not lovers.

Life laid a flaming finger on my heart,
Gave me an electric golden thread,
Pointed to a pile of beads and said:
Link me one more perfect than the rest.

Love's the thread, my sister, you a bead,
An ivory one, you are so delicate.
These first burned ash-grey—far too passionate.
Farther on the colors mount and sing.

When the last bead's painted with the last design
And slipped upon the thread, I'll tie it so,
Then smiling quietly, I'll turn and go
While vain Life boasts her latest ornament.

The Orlando  dead;  the ribbons and signs  on the  rotary’s fence.  My  mind fringed 
like  that,  bitten by  heat,  sky-kicking.  At  work the  soil was thin and  the  land
was  lent; long  rows for  kids to play at  tending.  There to help, I  once  allowed
the lettuce plants to fry to lace in minutes, like a joke. I cut my braids into the sink
and    thought     about    you    on     the    bus.    Tomatoes     bubbled    overnight,
stovetop   unattended.  What   profusion   I   found   I  made   a   little   dangerous.
The corn I’d  spaced  or planted  badly called out touch me,  lonely  perfect tassels
to   the  wind.   When   we   shucked   the   first  ripe   one,   only   half   filled   out,
even  the  cruel   twins  left  the  shed  and   pressed  to  look  and  touch  the  ear.
Its freak pearls, its cool thread. 

Some say thronging cavalry, some say foot soldiers, 
others call a fleet the most beautiful of 
sights the dark earth offers, but I say it's what-
            ever you love best.

And it's easy to make this understood by 
everyone, for she who surpassed all human 
kind in beauty, Helen, abandoning her
            husband—that best of

men—went sailing off to the shores of Troy and 
never spent a thought on her child or loving 
parents: when the goddess seduced her wits and
            left her to wander,

she forgot them all, she could not remember 
anything but longing, and lightly straying 
aside, lost her way. But that reminds me
            now: Anactória,

she's not here, and I'd rather see her lovely 
step, her sparkling glance and her face than gaze on
all the troops in Lydia in their chariots and
            glittering armor.