16
The principle of the sword was benign & frozen
an ice-word or presiding ray gone into deep night
or frost mantle like wool over our eyes
at the inaugural horizontal curved like a mirror
a vertigo spiral the principle of the sword
cuts clean & swallows its tale of AmericaA palm leaf divided the sky &
lined the donkey road to the contested city.But I shall always be faithful unto you, dogwood
though I was untrue like a bad American shepherd
weak & hysterical in a dead decade's light
it's just the principle of the sword that tries
like a royal finger
to blot out all those memoirs made of sighs
Henry Gould | Island Road 17
Contents | Mudlark No. 6