The Muse

By Barbara Millar
Posted and loved by Homeless with a Laptop, That is my Name

You may hide before she sees you
But she will find you. She will
Call your name. You’ll hear
Her mad, bewitching moan, and,
You, a shipwrecked sailor, drown
In the undulating waves of her devotion
As she rides the tides of your emotion;
And when she’s gone,
She’ll haunt you
As the day is long,
And you will mourn.

She will wrap you in her long, blonde tresses
The way your ligaments coil round
Your bones and tendons,
Taut, yet yielding,
Moving where you move.

You must shed your skin
So she can feel the bare, attenuated sinew
And where the nerves begin and end.

Her laughter falls like tiny drops of mist
Upon your face and hands;
She hears the sound that pleasure makes
When pleasure aches
As only pleasure can.

You’ll wish your face were wet with kisses,
Her lips upon your lips and lashes
When dawn unties her golden tresses
And dresses her in morning mists.

And when the night softly undresses
Veil by veil her silk and laces,
The moon will smile her silver smile, her body
More lovely than her face is.

She’ll kneel before you on the ground
And ask the stars to wear her crown.
You lay her on a bed of down.

Her golden hair your hands caress
And you, your love, to her confess
With every wave of tenderness
That heaves from one who has been blessed.

And when you lay in deepest sleep
She’ll quietly retreat into the corners of your dreams.
She is more than what she seems.
Neither lover nor wife, she is the dawn that comes
In the middle of your life.