The going
is a moon-walk
over springy terraces
of ice-shattered rock, riddled
with arctic scramblers,
bearberry and minute
mountain azalea, sunspots
through fog, an occasional blaze
of sea below – all
battened down and
buttoned up except
this mushroom, like a piece
of vernacular furniture,
tough droiltin tree
that seems to sprout
from the language of heart
and hearth; massy corbel
of the least willow. It’s not
sex I’m trying to get my head
around but what our
flowering costs us
I’m afraid that in this
as ever we spend
beyond our means. Who’d
jut out a poem except
they were in love?
The human way is ever
unsustainable –
whatever we make –
we wax more
and more outlandishly
beautiful until luminous our skin
splits; the scrambling twig
herniates its varnished bole,
well, yes, a gargoyle,
a hard-on.