In the jasmine arbour Falling drunk and pierced through We count stars like days Breathe the breath of turning leaves The winter bronze of evening windows Pretty but, one day it will down this tree Like cowboy Theseus sprawled on the back Of the fleeing Minotaur In Excruciating slow motion It eats children (I say) At who’s behest? A ring hard through the nose Quite angry Daedalus made the place, trapped me here Chagrined at his son’s burnt wings Offered nothing, for repast, but disobedient youth Arrogantly immortal The sea is soft Later, in the mild afternoon I pick it up, (why are my hands so cold?) Artefacts of light In my skin as if Fish left ghosts Sand undermined In mute outrush, deflecting Wavering against The unsupporting air From bird-wheeling hands Cast it back I watch from halfway up the balustrade of your ribs Wondering if, at the top There is a rat’s maze Or some other unimagined land The bright day comes When you turn the shape of dunes We fall from the sea A blue goddess of such auguries Smoke, curling from her lip Lolling as she inhales Lithe beings of it Into her mouth and nose again In a pariah prayer of victory The villa has terracotta stairs Rising to the blemish of a cat A black sepulchre underneath The zigzag shadows sharp enough For suicide, or misadventure (The evidence always inconclusive) A mouse approach If you slip, a creature Languidly swishing A stain hesitantly creeps Down the angles Of this laughable geometry Where we hide, a horned beast Stamps its foot
