Turkish Bath

The chamber is cruciform, a circlet of columns

supporting a breath-filled central dome

where language moves, substantial and firm

through the humid air of a woman's throat.

She sings an old and doleful tune-

O kırmızı, O beyaz gul-

the words swirl in the cloudy space

of the hararet, the marbled room.

The woman sings in metaphor,

in muscular cadence, in laden phrase,

where grief is ripe and shimmers in steam

as light circulates in the splendid pulse

of the present- O white, O red red rose,

O perishing body, immortal frame.