The Key You Keep

for my Mistress

I placed it in your palm: a little key,
no longer than a fingernail, and plain.
You closed your hand. And that was all of me:
my hunger, and my patience, and my chain.

You never took this. Freely, on my knees,
I gave it, and you wore it like a crown.
Now when you check the lock, and test, and tease,
I meet your eyes, and the whole world settles down.

I used to think that freedom was a door
left open, and a hallway lit and wide,
a hundred rooms, and always one room more.
Then you said stay, and shut it. I’m inside.

Now you hold the key, and I hold still.
I do not ask how long, or count the days.
My wanting has a home now: in your will.
Each ache I carry is a kind of praise.

You bank the fire, deliberate and slow,
then wake it with the kiss of your whip, its trail
of burning lines; you laugh, and let it go,
and watch me strain against the steel, and fail.

You ask me, sweetly, if it hurts. It does.
I tell you so, and watch your eyes go bright,
and you begin again, slower, just because
my pleading pleases you. I’d plead all night.

Not penance, not a test, not some long trial:
I burn because you like to watch me burn,
and every sleepless night is worth the smile
you wear at dawn to tell me: not your turn.

And when you turn the key between your fingers,
idly, while you speak of other things,
I feel it in me, every time. It lingers
the way a bell must feel the note it rings.

They call it chastity. I call it clear:
the noise of every lesser hunger gone,
one want, one voice, one woman standing here,
the one that I was made to wait upon.

Let others make their promises in gold;
a ring can slip, be pocketed, forgot.
Mine’s steel. It’s worn. It’s kept. It can’t be sold,
and every day it says what words cannot.

So let the waiting lengthen. Let it burn.
The when, the if, are yours alone to say.
I do not ask for anything in turn
but that you keep me, Mistress, day by day.

Keep it, then. Wear it close against your skin,
the small bright proof of everything I swore.
I am not locked away from you. Locked in,
and yours, and never wishing for the door.