It was his bag of tricks she wanted, surely not him:
The pipkin that sat on the flame, its emissions
Transporting her so she skipped from kitchen to kitchen
Sampling licks of food; she knew who had bacon
And who had porridge and tea. And she needed
The swoop of light from his torch
That wavered as she walked,
Booted, through the evening fair,
Catching the green flash of sheeps’ eyes,
The glow of false teeth in the skull:
Its grotto light stroked oxters of arches
Bridges, lintels, probed cobbles of tunnels
Where the world shook itself inside out like a knitted sleeve:
Light on the frozen mesh, the fishbone curve, the threads
And weights.
And as day
Glittered on skin, she stood
In the hood of a nostril and saw
The ocean gleam of his eye.