Neither read, nor yet, written

Winter’s leaving, in piecemeal increments

The sky has the tilt, of neglected volumes

That you thought you’d read one day

Blake and Howl and that exegesis 

On the sailboat shapes of sundials

Teetering in monuments, cocooned time

On the verandah, in the darkening afternoon

Blue-grey ink in chatter falling

To leave pages raw as skeins

In Japan (I say) they have a word for unread books

(I don’t remember exactly what it is)

The intentionality as beautiful as

A cicada’s dream of spring

Shoots bare as nibs from naked branches

and petals, soft and veined and blind and

so many days, thick as loaves, drunk as hope

not yet read

not yet written