Sleeping Bacchante

On Watching You Sleep After the Bacchanal

Sated satyr, I sit and watch soft breasts

rise and fall with your dreams’ rhythms, ponder

love’s mysteries in my wine haze, wander

my own wilderness spent, drunk, and undressed

from wild rides through vineyards . . . You were impressed

with—what?—you fell giggling to lie under

my lust’s burning, ripe and lusty, wonder

of youth and beauty, all grace unsuppressed!

 

What of morning? My head will ache, cheeks burn

with something akin to shame, and my heart

might patter with some new emotion—turn

the page and write my life anew? We’ll part,

and you’ll recall me as satyr du jour . . .

I’ll be crushed by this upset applecart.

David M Pitchford
12 June 2008