"Bombard"

For Simon

September came to us like cold Indians
Phantom globes of breath
chugging like locomotives as we travel, separately, amongst
Autumn,
and her hearty grieving leaves
The lemoncurd curls of laurel
On English soil with
heads in a furious Jupiter mist
Trying to forget the goblin
frost that lurks under the prettiest leaves.

The lips of Winter reach even
the iron core of Earth, to
kiss, to enchant the dreaming night of that
season that reaps and moans while
We pluck twigs like teeth from the brown
gums of oak
Building nests of conversation
of memory to overwinter our friendship
Somewhere warm and full
of moving, dancing pictures that reveal what once was,
fleetingly.

Our bones whisper "Sleep, now, sleep"
Retinas playing deceit of that sorrowful sunny
refrain for the paralysing vulgar heat
of Summer is surely plucked for good.
Did we open our mouth wide as heron's wings
to Swallow that Sun hard
to remember all the drunken elation of light
to suddenly find what the soaring kestrel seeks
a satellite hunt for minute motion
in the dormant grasses below
that woefully wave.