The Explorers

Caressing each other's bodies, rapt explorers

of dearly known terrain-the slope of shoulders,

the long curve of the back, with its minute valley,

its cloudy rising hills-hands delighting

in the sleek glide of the skin, muscled ridges

drawn taut, the clean profile of the bones-

ready for love, past ready for love, but on,

on go those hands, lost in their own volitions,

in a delirium of touch, like dancers moving

in an empty ballroom after the music's through,

as if some memory were being verified,

some blind man's landscape traced, some lost map drawn-

as if these surrendering bodies under these deft, warm

hands were melting-melting-melting like things of snow.