Her sky

is the ferns, and the dew sick flowers
opening and closing their gums
for the toothless promise,

for body to memory.

She thinks of the leopard she shot.
She saw the origin, the silent flow

out of a charred rose,
its last word rippling, eyes on her—

not full
of every change above the clearing
but pinching, resigning.

She trembles.
Then, in this trembling

a sunbeam
through the ferns, through the ill
and hungry flowerbeds,
on his redundancy.

And from her head falls
on the wet intimacy of the dark,
on the squirming stealth and fornication,

a curled bean. Naked.
Shivering.

She leaves him.

He hisses after her.
Hisses how dare you.

Then
a sudden violence upon him. Utters 

my God

how beautiful.
These flowers in the morning light.