to be your odalisque in one of these lives
and dance for you
and play the tanbur and the cither

being for you enraptured
in self-abandonment and bliss
as an ancient Sufi mode describes it

we have lost that language
though we still find it in books,
somebody has made us for that joy
- some of it is still here
in spite of us having bitten
the forbidden fruit

to be as blissful as children
as able of self-abandonment as they are

to be enraptured, as we ourselves can be
today