With my dark eyes open,
I search into the dark
for a reassurance
to soothe me like a look.

No beam will sink or angle,
no slow new mineral drip
through the circling ceiling,
no change of quiet drop.

Her womb will throw me outward
(unbreakably deep kiss),
inhospitable, solid,
into no circumference,

carrying dark to hold me,
to empty the slippery
solid cavern’s holding,
to hollow the beautiful

loud strength of a darkness
only dark can reassure,
in the night to my humanness
the unparticled has poured.

First collected in Calendars (Tupelo Press, 2003, second edition with CD, 2008).