Leda to the Swan

I hold for you these cups in sacrifice

To what you are and all you come to be –

Here to entice, I pay the votive’s price

In supplication of your sovereignty.

So hold me here, my better husband, love –

I turn for your embrace, for I choose you;

Here procreate yourself, fly from above –

I freely give you what’s your rostrum’s due.

So all my flesh in prayer, I concentrate

Upon these eggs I show to brute, force, light

And their full incarnation, so I wait

For your high bill and wings, your feathered might

To catch me here, these vessels for your need,

And here now sound, clench, break, spill, god, I plead.