Letter from Galatea

My waking is your moontime sleeping.
Like Michelangelo's Dusk and Dawn,
We're rough-hewn still, not fully formed.

I clad myself in marble once,
Smooth surface no place for clinging hands--
Solid, strong, cool monument of woman.

But I would not be your place of worship,
Nor sacred saint with beads to count,
So, slowly, white stone becomes flushed and warm.

Naked, unafraid, I breathe deep and quit my pediment perch
To find you too are flesh and bone.
The tenderest part of me curls around your skin,

And tucks you in to sweetest dreams