UNDERSTANDING CORTEZ

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  • Her lover moves across the room,
  • easy, slow, focused,
  • still damp from the shower,
  • ambling toward the closet
  • where his soft clothes hang.
  • She can feel the corded arms
  • that frame his long, sculptured body
  • as she watches from the pillows, smiling lazily.
  • He steps into the square of sun that falls
  • into this quiet room high above the park
  • and all the light is caught in one place—
  • a small stroke of gold on his hand
  • drawing her eye, catching her breath
  • with a wonder she can’t explain.
  • .
  • The room fills with armies,
  • fleets and expeditions
  • setting forth again and again
  • to find and, if needs be,
  • steal this ore from wherever it is
  • in the rivers or in the depths
  • of the deeply veined earth.
  • They told you in school
  • it was for the wealth, the power
  • but she’d never understood why
  • any metal could be so treasured
  • why it was worth the dangers
  • they faced, the price they paid.
  • .
  • Now she was sure they went forth
  • because they wanted to hold in their hands
  • the sun’s glorious presence on earth,
  • and when their hearts were full,
  • to melt and shape its beauty into forms
  • that graced and warmed their lovers’ bodies,
  • as did the glowing ring that
  • she now remembered
  • marked this beloved as her own.