3 July 2004
tickety-boo
you run your courses
in fencing flamenco ikebana
architectural
conservation
yet your womb is wet
you choose continence in a pill
appearing in magazines
your face is carved from data
enjambed in amber
perhaps your DNA’s
still viable
you rehearse
a jeremiad in Italian
as chessmen scuffle
you shovel solicitude like snow
you attempt to
hoist sacks of Incan gold
untie old sea dogs’ knots
or randomly reassemble
Macbeth
from a mainlining piano in the sky
you and Glenn Gould drop pebbles
into the moonlight
kilometres below
at your altitude
you hear only a hum
as ripples spread
among the stars