She drains our health and builds it up 
Into her body ; takes our breath, 
And we—we dream not it is death ! 
Arm unto arm and eye to eye, 
Breast to great breast and thigh to thigh, 
We look, and strain, and laugh, and die. 
I see the head hovering above 
To swoop for cruelty or love ; 
I feel the swollen veins below 
The knotted throat ; the ebb and flow 
Of blood, not milk, in breasts of fire ; 
Of deaths, not fluctuants, of desire ; 
Of molten lava that abides 
Deep in the vast volcanic sides ; 
Deep scars where kisses once bit in 
Below young mountains that be twin, 
Stigmata cruciform of sin, 
The diary of Messaline. 
The moving mountains crater-crowned ; 
The valleys deep and silver-bound ; 
The girdle treacherously wound ; 
One violet-crest mounded mole, 
 
 
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