Infirm
And now I do not wish
for things hidden in the sky;
in the ground of this snow,
the cold is telling in my limbs,
grey cliffs my flesh passes through.
My lungs –
burnt poppy coals –
have left the sea;
each secret translucent
as the next: a bedding tide,
a tangle of limp hair;
a man who lost his pocket watch,
his albatross wings
vinegar-crisp.
Shall I miss
the thistle seeds of my eye
every time I look at the sun?
Or the grain of my hip bone
turning over into the pillowed moon
where nothing but sleep is now?
This wind
so far beyond me, this will leave too -
cattle thick that my calves are;
the time to move all time.
I cannot move, I cannot move…
though fool I still am to memory -
there is a young girl running;
her slip showing like a spider’s web.
