for Auden
Love is doubtless
until it subsumes
a clock, a fist,
a canceled room
where time’s held
by time awake.
For minute hair,
a thorn, a flake,
this talk of that,
aggregate pots
in staring censure,
cursed, half-forgot.
Take ginger beer,
the tacking cloth
of your arms as
doubt of all oaths:
torn lines that spin
and snap to rest.
For mischief vows
daub your beast
with sparkle grass
like Bedding Street.
Its busied centers are
unread lives, incomplete
rain-pattered sleep
and unwreathed steps,
each shore we cross
with pebbled breath:
the caustic starfish,
the diamond sea,
nothing but stone
to bubble up eternally.
And I am the bright-
fabric arm of a dream.
Alive by wit, vagrant,
at ease: love schemes.
JULY 2007