Solomon Meets My Wife

Not eyes that coo, quiver, flap like doves

trapped in a veil, but eyes that turn, rush,

                                    rollick in ways—

how Clackamas River unbolted

the valley, raked up archaic silt

from its bed and lathered on the shores

                                    all summer long.

I see your hair not as goats crossing

the slopes of Gilead, but slaking

                                    plumes of Earl Grey.

                                               

I’d follow your hands forty years through

the Sinai. It’s your voice I swallow—

not terrible as any army,

                                    but cedar strong.

I climb it rung by rung. I turn it

in my fingers like a hallowed stone

                                    unearthed in Bethel.