Glory & Proviso

A poet has no nation 

– excepting this

Glory is not your word

The petal shape

Of a child’s anxious brow

The adumbrate pane of self

Sun warm against your arm

Leant in that strangely desert face

Of the sill’s soft craquelure

Lead white and with the dirt

Thick in seam and corner

A mica fleck where one day

(The window left half open)

Something small may grow

Once we are

The long strides of morning

Leaving curbs and fences

In a shadow’s flicker wake