The Transfiguring Night

I suppose it is the silence. How the night
Dampens sound the way that cotton soaks up blood,
Swelling as it must, turning dark itself.

It is that quiet as much as anything
That lets me touch you like this, lets me release
My tailored sense of self,

Drop away the disapproving voices
Of parents, education, of God, of Sisterhood. It’s why
I never want to talk to you

In bed, except in moans
And those low howls you pull raw from my throat.
There am I made a small, intense animal

That lurks in lunar shadows
Foraging for the nourishment of lust, wary
Of owls and bats. I feel my neighborhood,

Follow familiar paths along the edges of the trees,
Sink into creases in the earth, and listen,
Always listen, for the death-beat of wings.

Be kind to the ghost-bones
Of my poor, slight skeleton. Be silent. Do not crush them
With your stolid, weighty love.