Light-Spattered Hem

I love my particular sin 
of inappropriate lust
and immoderate liking.
It has saved me from just
such a roundabout rout 
in the service of gods:
I was hardly tempted, 
against such bleak odds,
to throw. My friend 
hands back her vows
after searching inquiry: 
I never take them. It cows
me, but it's right, and 
my own tradition of wild men
in the forest or the tavern
is a light-spattered hem:
as close to a robe 
as an eye that's caught by any dress
should ever try to knot across 
its wanton emptiness.