Her apartment has a dazzling view;
the city coruscates at her feet in the east
and to the west is the desert,
severely black and empty as death.
Not even Orpheus would tumble,
singing, into such darkness, not even
Eurydice would illuminate such depths.

Her room is pure symmetry.
A flat screen sheening like black
ice, sleek angled chairs inviting him
like the hidden maw of a hound.
The internal order straining
against the entropy. Sit down, she
says, loosening her blouse, sit down.

She is a compelling argument,
so immediately soft. He remembers
the poet under the Greek sun, its
effervescence a facsimile of night.
Lashing his naked back.
Five books of poems in sixty
years, five slim books

that he envies
as she slides off his pants.
He will die slowly, vanishing
in luxury. The ruins of the poet
smolder, a silhouette of its own splendor.