The still explosions on the rocks,
the lichens, grow
by spreading, gray, concentric shocks.
They have arranged
to meet the rings around the moon, although
within our memories they have not changed.

The shooting stars in your black hair
in bright formation
are flocking where,
so straight, so soon?
–Come, let me wash it in this big tin basin,
battered and shiny like the moon.

How loving this poem proves to be. Time passes as it must and our physical shape and ‘colour’ may alter, yet the enduring affection described by the poet for her partner lights up the poem, converting the grey to the luminous, the heavenly, to ‘the shooting stars.’ The esoteric apects of the poem are teasingly interrupted by the tender and most imtimate practicality of the ending where the beloved’s hair will be washed by her lover, ‘in this big tin basin, battered and shiny like the moon.’ What an irresistible and most intimate invitation! A hug of a poem!