Procris and Cephalus

1.
His absence could not prevent the moon's
heavy silver light firing her body's
darkness. She moved about the house, clumsy
with longing; again and again, she summoned
her husband's image, clasped him in her mind.
When the stranger came, resembling him,
she offered shelter, hearth, then withdrew
into a masking silence. Polite at first,
but soon importunate, he touched the hem
of her sleeve, the garnet at her breast,
then the outline of her lips which trembled
for a long moment, opened. When all desires,
all disguises, were shed, "I am your husband,'
he said, "and you are an adulteress'.
Do not make love to an illusion —
it may be real.
2.
Now seasoned adulterers, both of them.
That staged betrayal set him free,
licensed to take other lovers.
Shamed, she moved to a distant city,
consoled herself with this one, that one.
On an out-of-town trip, he accosted her
in a side street; she was dressed as a youth.
"You remind me,' he told her,
"of someone I once knew.'
"They all say that,' she said,
and took him home. None of her dreams
of reconciliation resembled this.
Love knows no disguise.
3.
Her image is before him in the cool dawn light,
suspended in the spray above the cliff.
From her death, no suffering can free him.
Half-waking, he conjured her likeness,
not knowing she was standing there,
in the darkness, brushing her hair.
In that room where, hours before,
she had revealed the self
and body that he knew —
turning to him, her arms
raised, smoothing her hair —
she now moved towards him. Fear
disordered his mind, made him strike
at her as enemy, intruder, quarry.
Now he is walking towards her, into the mist
that shrouds the cliff.
Does the deer love the hunter?