Nine White Tulips

A vase with nine, white tulips,
shimmers – liquid silver
by their bed;

outside the window
the moon, slips
behind this cloud,
and the next.

A midnight sky drizzles its wind
like curaçao, through
the lime trees

wefts and weaves
its way into their room
where, sated – each with each
they tread their labyrinths
of dreams;

his – of a whisper
of a gown as it shimmied
to the floor...and hers

of the nine, white tulips
he’d picked that day,
heads bowed, as if in prayer

but she had opened to him
as, slowly, he’d knelt to kiss her pink,
petalled bloom, put their beauty
to shame.