For Leda

She loved the song that lent me wings,
its pale mythology of lust.
Reaching for words the singer sings
she clutched at feathers and found dust.

And now upon her swan-beat back
she bears the weight of firmer bones;
and I, who never heard a lack
of grace in any woman's groans,

am lifted on her soaring hips.
Transfixed she struggles down to day,
choked by the earth between her lips,
treading a firmament of clay.