At that critical moment, she whispered later, the panic
   of absolute doubt breathed on her left breast
While he was touching her right: what if this light reflected
   in the window, this candle smoke, this empty
Water glass, were neither something nor nothing
   but a deadly coupling of the two,
                                                radiating
Cancerous phosphorescence in every atom,
   photon and cell of the body of the world?
He knows that when she came, her face fixed
   in the ancient gnostic gaze of ecstatic horror
Of being. Her voice drew him into her
   with an irresistible undertow.