negotiate its way

between grass stems.

A long unmeasured contentment,

Leong holding the woman

he knew he loved,

all their promises

still unspoken.

∗

Before he voiced it,

before the afternoon ended,

Khidyr knew he loved her,

a complication as unanticipated

as his tenderness,

a tenderness that entangled her,

drew her to the man

she’d thought to discard.

So that she kept to herself,

then and always,

that she’d come to him

only to get a child.

Kept also the blanket

they’d lain on,

kept it long after the smell

of wild thyme had faded,

after it was worn through with holes,

when it held nothing

but a memory of blue irises

and his arms enfolded

around her.

PAIRED

In steady rain, late afternoon,

Hana’s husband, King Xau,

stood on a hillside. Wet.

Surrounded by horses.

His horses, their guards’ horses,

Ganbataar’s horses.

Hana beside him, relatively dry

inside an oiled cape

though her braids dripped.

Xau not much to look at:

thin, beardless, plainly dressed,

stroking one horse then another,

breathing horse breath.

“Three days left,” said Xau,

glancing at Hana and away again.

And then, in a rush, “We are sorry.

We know you are happier here

than at the palace.”

“Xau.” She touched his wet cheek.

“I chose you, hardly knowing you,

because of what Vihaz did,

and because you stayed

to fight beside your guards.”

Swift, the first shift

from respecting Xau to liking him.

Slower, only in these past weeks,

that her liking for Xau

had set down roots. Grown.

Xau’s eyes on hers, intent,

as she said, her voice firm,

“Now, knowing you,

I would choose you again

even if I had to stay indoors

every day of my life.

I choose you.”

An easing in Xau’s stance

as he took in her words.

The horses watched, sidelong,

as Xau kissed her in the rain,

water dripping from his hair,

his chin, his ears.

And then a dun mare

with a black-striped back

lay down and rolled vigorously

in a mud patch,

and once she was done

Narson, Xau’s black gelding,

rolled in the same spot,

and Xau put his arm around Hana

and together they watched

as one after another

all the horses rolled

in the rain and the mud,

foolish as foals.

SUMMER’S END

They lay on the felt blanket

in the grasslands of the horse country,

the day warming to heat around them,

Leong stroking Khidyr’s ample curves,

summer coming to an end.

“I love you,” said Leong helplessly

for the fifth time that morning.

He was forty-one years old,

but less wise than a lovesick boy.

He loved her, but he was leaving.

“Ask me,” said Khidyr.

“Ask you what?”

Khidyr pushed him away, sat up.

“Of all the clever men I’ve known,

you are by far the most stupid.

Ask me to come with you,

ask me to marry you.”

Hope flooded Leong.

And as quickly abandoned him.

Khidyr didn’t understand.

“I work long hours.

I have no home of my own—”