I don’t think I’ll see any lovers this morning
rising from dewy meadows,
twined like bind weeds
and blooming pink hued and golden
with such clinging desire.
This morning only grey plumed pigeons
paired on the power plant lines
below sleeping peregrines.
You went through London’s swamp
clutching that last thing,
the mantlepiece clock
and its key for winding.
What happened to perpetual motion?
Timepieces, simple mechanics,
just hands sweeping around a dial,
the earth around the sun,
the shifting moon factored in.
No confusion,
clouds come up,
but the mountain stands still,
the erosion, the plates underneath,
too slow to register any significant error.
Yet always the friction.
Louise said heaven.
Some pale plateau glowing
in her fervent imagination,
but also tangible
like a thatch of a chestnut’s mane
that you can’t help but thread your fingers through
and hold close, inhaling the musk and fire.
Who named you and made you other.
And what energy fuels this need to grasp
and stake some claim, graze into the next pasture.
The senses sway and pull us under the blue green caress in
waves.
We glean and gather and pack our hearts with rough bales,
Only to pull out later
Sad amber catches of eyelashes and kisses,
faint pockets of breathless gasps
on the edges of desks, perhaps,
where beauty falls
in each swerving atom
and should they collide . . . .
