Appetite (2)

The winds square up the mind to surfaces,
and slats of rain, and chimney smoke

in rain, like an imperfect liquid pearl,
ascending from farms made bright

by chessplayers and pianos.  Why had we hired
to tramp through Sparta

with raised cups, quaffed mad theologies,
delivered the tables in decked rooms

to sumptuous agenda, breaking our lives away
with forms, accommodations to the music?

He means to see for himself some nights, examining
acres of drawn signs, and futures drawn

to all the influence of hunger, to Saturdays
again and appetite, driving through storm

to get to it, all he would do in case transformed
to metier, to searched pasts, (sealed

as paints had seemed to be, but in the daylight
weathering,) a man remembering

that charred horse, hand-tooled and colored
by hand, and that wood horse

crying harm to the smeared sky, the last
to be spared the heat and hauled

from cellar hole.

 

© Appetite (2)