The First Night

Red plush drapes enwombed the bed.
A body's width from the walls,
arrases with hunting scenes…
Whose the humiliation,
whose the triumph? He had lain
paralysed with loathing then
rolled over to pin her down,
as if holding a baby
underwater. She would not
close her eyes, or look at him.
Both hollowed to dried-out wells
by an intimacy that
never can be repeated.