I should have lied when Helen took my hand
and asked me quietly did I want to see
her room. She said her parents were away
and I said yes and followed up the stairs
and down the too-wide corridor to where
we stopped at nothing but an open door.

We stopped there too, and kissed, and time ran hot
and hurled us through the door and through the room
to stand beside the window and look out.

Look out, she said. This is my father’s realm.
It runs down to the river and beyond
those tumbling waters up that harrowed hill.
My father received this as a gift. To work.
He’s worked it up, and when he starts to tire
he’ll pass it on to me and to my man.

Are you that man? she asked. I should have lied.
Instead, I said I was and asked if this
window where we stood was of her room.

No, she said, here’s where my parents sleep.
We walked back through it then, climbed further stairs
and trailed our hands along a banister
she said the servants waxed three times a year.

We reached a landing. I reached in her dress
and she resisted after a short while
and we went further than we’d gone before
but stopped again. I tried to hide my pain
and made a joke, I don’t remember what.

Dó you, Helen asked, have rooms like this
where you live? Nó, I did not lie, we don’t.

She let me enter, shoeless. I was scared.
Scared I’d sneeze or something and she’d laugh.

Je t’adore, she said. I locked it too.
We acted like we did not hear the click.

My father’s rich, she said, are you so tired?
Come over here, let’s play like we’re asleep.

I played I had control. I tried to count
my heartbeats and not think about her breasts.

A thousand miles downstairs a ringing bell
persisted ringing every time we moved
and peacock sentries on the upper lawn
cried warnings I alone was cursed to hear.

And Helen took my hand. I almost died.
The sun came up three times in half an hour
and I learned Heaven’s not that far away.

A small cloud passed her window and returned
then fell like feathers, landed on the strip
that separates their stables from the pool.

Her father, back from Paris, looked our way
and disappeared. I heard him in the hall
and on the lower stairs and then on hers.

I hurled my clothes and shoes and then myself
out Helen’s window. On the balcony
I met her mother, massive and composed.

Son, she called me. I put on my clothes.

I work here now, for Helen, on her farm.
I have my own rooms. I don’t see her much.

The few times we pass each other I look and think
she once was pretty, on that fateful day
that she asked me up and I forgot to lie.