I.

And could you swim at Lindisfarne, softening

with sunrise and never bicker? Good intentions,

still all thumb. Pray you don’t waste time. I

pray nightly never to see you too held close by

wicker, I pray but all day slapdash careful to save

face. To have been married, I pray nightly never.

II.

There is no counsel, no closure, no opening,

just winter. ‘In leaving you, I left myself’ oh

bore on, Cara Helena Derelicta. You ask: why

must all these poems sing to me? I am trying

very much to work on my intellectual honesty.

Some cheek, I agree, to wail after a ship I

sank myself. Hard, to learn refusal is not purity.