At Baia
Hilda Doolittle
I should have thought in a dream you would have brought some lovely, perilous thing, orchids piled in a great sheath, as who would say (in a dream), “I send you this, who left the blue veins of your throat unkissed.” Why was it that your hands (that never took mine), your hands that I could see drift over the orchid-heads so carefully, your hands, so fragile, sure to lift so gently, the fragile flower-stuff— ah, ah, how was it You never sent (in a dream) the very form, the very scent, not heavy, not sensuous, but perilous—perilous— of orchids, piled in a great sheath, and folded underneath on a bright scroll, some word: “Flower sent to flower; for white hands, the lesser white, less lovely of flower-leaf,” or “Lover to lover, no kiss, no touch, but forever and ever this.”
