Rembrandt's Jewish Bride
Their flesh is the tall light of candles.
Her ember skirts smoulder.
His sleeves are buttered with gold.
Their mouths, so recently trembling round their vows, have settled like butterflies.
You see a fine trilling in the wires of his hand, fanned on her breast, feel the moist tips of her fingers on his skin at last, touch the unconscious fold of dark silk her other hand begins to part.
The rest is shadow, an umber gentleness of rest.
Kate Foley