I have wrought your body, clear with sun, in my mind.
You stand ankle-deep in the thin water, your hair
Curled evenly on your temples, and your eyes
Turned to the sea and the tall clouds. Your lips are closed,
Forgetting their songs, as you pause in the wide sea-light.
You came once, another bather, out of the heavy land,
One with the bronze-shouldered swimmer, the lovers
On the hot shore, the peculiar and prying child.
You came once, laughing, in a world you knew.
But now, though the wind run sharp with frost and leaf,
Though the waves stagger upon the snow, you stand
Tranquil, apart, in sunlit silence,
No longer eager for the white broken water, the pungent weeds,
No longer caught gleaming in the waves.
And they say, She lies dead beyond the stubble and sand
In a naked bed, her eyes still as pearls,
Her leaf-red hair driven across her forehead.