To Be soothed
we do things
yet stir up nettles the foot-pedal of the radio-organ shuffling
as though schooled.
To escape
we dream the way holy men have gone into the desert to be alone
in harsh light:
Harsher, stricter
than marriage ground down by mace in cup to so fine a powder it could be blown away by the first wind.
Too intense, too close, dream piled on dream
a natural history of disappointment
we must get out of home.
Like a good parent, I cannot tuck you in. Fears won't sleep.
Even bankrupt you carry on
ship scraping bottom
Like swans wing-in-wing we glide among ashes
that could come
from Christ's body
or the Holocaust