A City and a Tower

My name was Araceli in the evening
when we danced, darkness against the dark,
and he joked about erecting
spiraled towers from the dirt.
“We will be grass in the morning,” he said,
“but now we are weeds.”
And I whispered, “Come on, boy, dance.”
That night he calls me Eden,
though I see him look like wolves;
his wayward leaning is slick
and slides me down.
And I rise

and rise

in my bosom

‘til I am full of that “per sempre!”
the wild girls carry in their laugh,
when the wineglasses are drained
and the sun is the moon,
and I go laughing all evening long.
And that night he calls me Heathen,
my love.
In my sweat
he tells me how weeds
overgrow the grass.
And jokes that he has built
spiraled towers in the dirt
and fastens his belt
and laughs.