Retired from Hell, Paolo Says It Was Heaven
Inferno V
Aroused beside her, I went mute
because my every word was pinned
to shredded semaphores of wind,
and my resistance now was moot.
Her gentleness put on a storm.
Beauty without a stitch of cloth’s
a bonfire crackling with moths.
I rose and tumbled with her form.
She flared. Maybe I seemed depraved
to those who watch the sun’s eclipse
through a glass, darkly, but I caved
in, helpless, when she twitched her hips.
Our favored region was the nether
as we held tight against the weather.
Measure: A Review of Formal Poetry, vol. 10, no. 2 (2015)
