Leda Waiting

Fair Leda waits for her beaked king’s advance
Within her palace on her silky bed
Or draped in moonlight and the moon’s romance
Hard by a lake or river heaven fed –
Or dark in forest and its dappling shield
Where fairies play on branch or swaying leaf
With all the magic of their queen revealed
While her white king comes as a changeling thief –
Or as her supper in a covered dish
That, lifted, shows his tender flesh to her
That, after many kisses, to her wish,
Consumed within an orgiastic blur,
Waits nascent for her mouth to call again
To room or shoreline, wood or dish domain.