Apokrypha
poem #119
I know the woman the Levites employed
to trim iris at midday
in the Gentile courtyard—
when the veil was torn
the priesthood receded
like morning primrose,
but the woman remained
in her jasmine and linens—
she knew that somewhere
behind the new door,
old tablets balanced
against one another, two sides
of a seed, its coil unopened—
she was forbidden
to speak of such things,
but when sleep of the lotus
descended would sing:
in the outworking bloom
of their most secret dream,
a garden arose
to the cheek of the moon.