Love song
While I sniff in the nettles’ secret smell
a bee hesitates sideways
by a snapdragon’s tempting lip.
(A man snoring,
death mask,
round, empty mouth.)
At night I sip your breath,
held in your rhythm,
shared air, taken and given.
The rivers open mouth
says thirst, a tongue
stuck to a ridged palate
oxygen bubbles in a glass.
I watch the twisted rope of water
unskein, slip over a rock.
(A satin sheet
over the bed’s edge.)
Uphill, in the transparent leaves,
a squirrel cracks beech mast,
lets the shells fall.
A shrew lives in a hole in the wall.
Tall chimneys thrust through trees,
talking towers.
I wish I could imagine
the river’s unimaginable reverse.
Page(s) 38
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