So hot within, and burning of its own;
Can this exist?  Such mystery!  So much
Doth this incalesence my hand alight.
Do this I feel?  Or this I thrill to touch?

Such taste!  Once cool, luxuriantly grown!
Now serous, thawed, deliciously beset;
And dripping wild implore, and sweet delight,
This form doth crave me, sybaritic, wet:

As poised, and shook, reverberating! Prone
Beneath my fingers: arch, and push, and curve;
And sparkling like crystal with excite,
So shot with lightning’s fire, every nerve…

Then cool… this down of twilight, quiet shone;
Where she is mine this night, and mine alone.

• For Lady Day
• And, of course, to My Sweetest Love

This sonnet is part of a short sequence; click here to read it all:

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