Belly Dancer

You were at first in motion paused
until the Persian instruments
sang out into the heat their plaintive strains,
and hummed you to release.

And then, beyond belief,
I saw you lift the sun, the day
within the small curve of your hands,.
make captive wind and fire
and fierce men’s shining eyes
and breath
with slow rotations of your spangled hips,

And so,
inside your panthered sway
inside the lacing, lolling, slow
uncoilings of your arms.
I came to know today
a little of the pleasured shapes
of paradise.