First love.

First Love.

 

The field strings a spine

Of pearls through my years

To bed: a tepid pool then

Dispersed by ocean violence.

It rushes still, to where I cannot dam.

 

T’was a jungle; its ends

A myth amid dense foliage,

The startling bravery of insects…

And we roamed

(Briefly savage before teatime)

Crushing elderberries into blood

On our arms - so real

We felt pain.

 

Other children would pass through

To eat a piece of the game,

Then leave me to comprehend

My kingdom; to treasure alone

His rare mystery.

 

I have mourned the sting

Of his clumsy nettles

And found balm in the docks

Which would thrive

Like the tide, uncertain.

 

The concrete of absence

Scorched the ashen copse

And the sound of tin brought me

In to sup the cradle’s dregs.

Sugar will not span the strain and

I see its round thrill sluiced,

 Insipid against the gore

Slain fresh on other plains.

 

To this I return

For though the bone is bare

I own it, like a stone

In my fist, and I rub spit

On the glass.

An atheist with her candles

At the looted altar.