Arranging for my due ration of terror
involves me in such lunacies
as recently demanding to be shown
the broad blue ovals of your eyes.
Yes: quite as alarming as you’d promised,
those lapidary iris discs
level in your dark small face.
Still, for an hour or two I held them
until you laughed, replaced your tinted glasses,
switched accents once again
and went away, looking faintly uncertain
in the sunlight (but in charge, no doubt of it)
and leaving me this round baby sparrow
modelled in feather-coloured clay,
a small snug handful; hardly apt
unless in being cooler than a pebble.