There is a tiny kingdom
asleep in a cobwebbed tower.
The eyes are semiprecious.
The head is a spider’s.
In a margin of the portrait
a white flock clips across the road.
The bracelet burns the inspired hand,
lavender fingers rooted in touch.
Night comes to the portholes,
to the rake and bellowing of the
channel boat, at the bump of a
green, domestic wave.
Straked by night’s end,
by mendicant birds
pearling an idiot’s song.
In a gown of changeable jade,
in the burst corona that was her star,
her hair a nest of flame.
She dove to my body’s reefs
and claimed me kiss by kiss.