Sweet breath on my shoulder
As I wake from a dream
Of frozen rain and snow-white horses.
The warrior's arm, like a child's,
Lies on my waist in peaceful slumber,
As innocent of death as a nun.
Like a fresh dream in the making,
The warmth and fragrance of her closeness
Invades me with soft urgency.

I could come full awake--but, no!
I will resist. I will stay right here
In the cleansing cold of crushed diamond snow,
Where recently, white horses thundered like gods,--
Big-muscled, wild-eyed, beautiful in flight!
And I will not move from the dream circle
Of her arm, her breath, her sleeping heart.

But, then again, perhaps I will.
For I love to wake and watch her sleeping
In the half light of her dreams and the coming day.
I love to touch her face while she's sleeping,
See her smile from some faraway place,
And wait for her to come back to me.
Those blue eyes will open all gentle with sleep
In a wordless moment of precious peace.
A soft, tentative kiss--and then another.
I will curl against her heartbeat like an unborn child;
Ignore the quickening day, hold on to the night.

Her arms pinion my shoulders against the soft earth,
Beneath the hungry lion's devouring mouth.
From tick to tick, first tender, then merciless--
Part lover, part foe.
The power and insistence of her passion
Always frightens me in small, delicious ways--
Sometimes I feel I only live to know that fear.
What endless need is in her love!
How can I feed such emptiness?
Finally, in the blind heat of my surrender,
Like lightning in my head-- A white horse with blue eyes leaps out of the darkness:
Wild-eyed, he struggles in chest-deep snow--
And rejoices!