page 109

Secular Thoughts

With her hands in frilled white
cuffs and her arms spread
to either side in a dark armchair

she relaxes the entire room,
the city, the morbidities of career
talk, while the fire

leaps on itself, the shaded
lamp brims its chaste corner,
the rims of glasses

floating their thin bangles.
She grows ‘lovelier and lovelier’
while nothing is said,

nor done, nor intended,
nor, mind you, quite out of the question.
Think of fishes and five loaves.