Strange moonlight, with the brassy
        taffeta sleeves, is draped
over the bay, its gold-checkered applause
        strutting like rain onto

the boards of June nights, and it sinks
        deep into my held breath
like old-time heartache, into the
        unassuming, half-lit gulf;

I am as untroubled water there,
        a careless Adriatic
bay enclosed with the simple
        Roman masegni

of a laureate merchant city,
        and my eyes find its gray
through the rose blond disguise
        and forget their age,

and I hear the echoing steps
        above my moon-tinged window,
my parched fingers lost in the fine flaxen
        strands, in the unforgiving

manner of once knowing aureate
        hair in late August, of
laureate eyes basking in the gaudy
        Bergamask of night.

And the careless lines whispered from behind
        the drawn velvet of a shy
dawn fall on my ears, and you search
        for the meaning to a love

of life that is deeper than my breath,
        though as lonely and gilded
as the gaudy Bergamask, and I
        cannot be sure if you are

looking for me, though I cannot
        sleep under your wild, gentle light.