Luck To have lived
at the level of floorboards
and not to give a toss
about Antaeus
or any of that
Only the pleasing precision
of solid dirt
inlaying the planks
like a long leather bootlace
or finding the perfect fit
of thumb to the palate
Carefully torn
wallpaper sufficient
unto the hour
A mouth
I taste everything
because I have no taste
It is enough this ignorance
these particulars
I kiss
The nails
surrender a patient light
underlings
their living daylights
a kind of dusk
or sunk out of sight
like that blackhead I prize
beside your eyebrow
deep as your pierced ear
that tag on your neck
like a Coco Pop scratchy
the white appendix scar
its warp in the weft
like perished elastic
the linked Assyrian mail
the lair on your private parts
I am too deep in detail
too deep to divine
your identity
Urania
Clio
Calliope
or catch all that stuff
you keep singing about sunsets
Listen Just listen
Like Santa Claus
the milkman leaves a xylophone
he walks down the gravel drive
listen just listen
like someone eating
eating
sugared almonds
Send Letters To:
The Editor
London Review of Books,
28 Little Russell Street
London, WC1A 2HN
letters@lrb.co.uk
Please include name, address, and a telephone number.