And Now Upon My Head the Crown by Phillip B. Williams

And Now Upon My Head the Crown

1.

             In the first place—I wanted him and said so

when I had only meant to say. His eyes

opened beyond open as if such force would unlock me

to the other side where daylight gave reason 

for him to redress. 

                                           When he put on his shirt, 

after I asked him to keep it off, to keep putting off 

the night’s usual end, his face changed beneath 

the shirt: surprise to grin, to how even the body 

of another’s desire can be a cloak behind which 

to change one’s power, to find it.   

2.

                                                                 In the first place

he slept, he opened the tight heat of me that had been 

the only haven he thought to give a name: 

Is-it-mine? Why-you-running? Don’t-run-from-it—as though

through questions doubt would find its way away from me,

as though telling me what to do told me who I was.