Aubade In the grayscale dawn at that hour that Has given us the aubade The lovers lay on their backs talking In the bed her maid will make later While she sits at her desk sobbing Their tongues touching their white teeth Naturally one of them has to leave Naturally it is he who has to Since it isn’t his bed and can never be This in a time before time Was given hands by which to tell us What it is Nothing can stop the sun from rising He has told himself he will leave When the first beam plunges through the gap Between the heavy curtains That pool in luscious folds on the floor Covered in rich rugs bare feet sink into As if one is walking on moss It will be hard to extricate himself From her thin moon-colored arms Until then he will lie Here beside her the only lying he has done He who has tried to be true to this one On the chair where she sits To brush her long golden hair (the gold-backed brush is full of it like a boy who claims to have seen a fairy) Are folded his beautiful clothes the green Of the first leaves of spring They’re delicious to wear He is of the court of the king Who drove her father the righteous brother Into exile and who he’s been ordered to murder Long in its scabbard his sword sleeps In the wefts of its gilded handle Can be seen the blood of men he’s killed Kissing their astonished eyes shut As he twisted the blade deeper So as to get the painful part over faster Suddenly the sunbeam he told himself He’d leave upon seeing appears So substantial he thinks he could hang His clothes over it But instead he puts them on Turning away from her while he dresses A habit from having so many sisters Then bends down to kiss her eyes closed As if he could encourage her to sleep Then climbs down the vines that grow From the ground up to her window Where she stands long after He leaves thinking of his hands in her hair Deep in the forest darker Than the green of his clothes Her father’s men surround him Having learned of what the king has asked him to do He doesn’t bother telling them He isn’t going to do it Knowing they won’t believe him He pulls out his sword not to defend himself But so no one can question his honor And draws a little blood Lightly as if in pencil The day after she’ll walk through the forest Followed at a distance by her maid Until she comes to the place His blood has been calling her towards To lie down on the ground where he died The only lying she has done To talk to him of the child She felt inside her the moment She stood at the window And he breathed her name