The Bougainvillea, Your Black Dress

After the detonate wind, after the hurricane
three years ago, you saved the bougainvillea,
sheering the broken limbs, untangling
the knotted veins for more light. You told me

how the leaves, ankle-deep, were papery,
clean, like the discarded wings of insects.
For two days, your hands were swollen,
for the thick, tumorous net of thorns pierced

through the layers of your gloves. Surely,
I think, your lover then held your hands,
coveting those wounds he could
tend, and he nearly wept as he salved

your palms. The beauty is in the bougainvillea’s
deformity, its danger, you said. Today, I
asked for this, all of this, over the phone,
while on your line harps played on the radio,

either Debussy, or Ravel or Faurè, we could
not name. The music sounded like a Degas
woman shadowed by candle, or you
in your black dress, before the bougainvillea,

a sea of outrageous coral, too full and
swollen, a renovation of sex and
abundance, a swirling of a hunger
you could live by. When you say touch does not

make beauty repulsive, you are right.
Love, all my life, my body has been
impatient, ambient only with want.
When you wear your black dress--the seam

that splits at your breasts, the extravagance
of your skin and hair--I see a woman
dressed in the last sensible idea,
a happiness distinct from melancholy. Yes,

beauty is not an island, but a siren,
scorching the sky with flash and
yearn, and we ourselves are flashing
and yearning. And if we lose a little blood

on a twist of thorns? And if we become
a little infected? When you wear your
black dress, I will come to you,
ungloved.

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