"The river in its abundance"

Eros at Temple Stream
by Denise Levertov

The river in its abundance
many-voiced
all about us as we stood
on a warm rock to wash

slowly
smoothing in long
sliding strokes
our soapy hands along each other’s
slippery cool bodies

quiet and slow in the midst of
the quick of the
sounding river

our hands were
flames
stealing upon quickened flesh until

no part of us but was
sleek and
on fire


From Selected Poems

Liebespaar, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, 1908