For the Praiser of Perilous Lips

You say: "If other women have straight lips,

Or thick lips that snarl, so that my own fear them,

Her lips, shaped for what's utterable,

Or muting into the silence of gone music,

Are never twice the same." But you are wrong.

For in the end, beyond their maze of words and silences,

Her lips arch always into stones of a bridge

Few cross willingly; since all who dare its span,

Though conquerors of the fire of day,

Of the light of shore and sky,

Are trapped in final shadow.

Go toward the ever-changing if you must;

But this I know:

Eyes that survive the sun

May be blinded by shadow.