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`` Those sweet girls??

Oh you're joking.

It tastes a little like poppyseed.

What's its name??

Steinhager '' She whispered Steinhager to herself, several times, memorizing it.

`` Would you first read the poem aloud to me and then let me read it to myself ''??

Meredith's voice was always deep, with rough bass notes in it ; ;

in reading, on platforms, even in the large auditorium of the Y.M.H.A., Poetry Center nights, his voice was intimate, thoughtful, and a trifle shy.

His new poem, a love poem, told of a young husband leading his wife upstairs to the bedroom when the lights in the house have failed.

The husband points the steps out with his flashlight: `` Its white stare filling her pale eyes To the blind brim with appetite, Bleaching her hands that grazed my thighs And sent us from the table in surprise To let the dishes soak all night, '' ( Mary Jane asked herself if Meredith was blushing at this line, or was it the fire??

) But he read on.

In the bedroom before the husband and wife find their way to the bed, the lights go on: `` In dull domestic radiance I watch her staring face, still blind, Start wincing in obedience To dirty waters, counters, pots and pans, Waiting below stairs, in her mind ''.

Mary Jane took the page from him and began reading it, moving her lips with the words.

`` Oh, it's that myth, about Orpheus and What is her name??

I can never pronounce it ''.

She repeated `` Eurydice ''.

The third time rather urgently.

But with her hand poem again.

She raised her face and nodded, `` It's sweet, and very sad ''.

They discussed the way people never tell each other the things on their minds.

They finished the small bottle of Steinhager.

She confessed she was unhappy, he asked was it her husband??

She began to explain, `` There was this poet, in Italy '' He interrupted, `` Please don't judge all poets ''.

They smiled.