the bullet's a book furrowing moonlight into occupied france
grazing the slough of lives long gone
down lanes of arcady bared by the ploughboy's gaze
look back from your carriage the moonlight's streaming through poplars
satyrs in marble a temple glimpsed by poussin
remember that cold voluptuary you brushed leaves from her lips
then kissed them
there was no fire but what burnt within you
it still burns will burn forever
strafing the under storeys blazing with homeward
desire
the bullet's a book you're reading it
in hospital corridors at night too late
to examine for tracers of
life