We grind by hand, our own language

It was the bees.caught in walls, drunk sweet on fig nectar

humming beneath plaster, sounding like colliding voices

pieces of me calling out on repeat, tapestry in postponement

the last stitch incomplete

seeing her round the corner, raspberries breathing pink air

blue footed like china luminescent in spring water

her eyes hazelnuts over cream, bore into me

we grind by hand, our own language

discovered intimates beneath tables

swapping lace work, scuffing soles

you come on your almond knees, bold and fat cheeked

moss, ivy and peat through high headed daisies

breathing deep whistling distance

keep still, as hush of light rain mists

like sitting children gathering silver, grow vociferous

look

resting on clasped fingers

the turnover of keeping, your strengthening faith

furnishing with still grace, as no-one could contain

the descending stone of woman’s will

but you who held up the world

with one deft movement

a silhouette among gouache doves

rendered in raven, as lovely as permitted

sung by myth and fable, beyond this plain place

where such is the drift of pirouette dream

beholding slim waisted girls gathering fruit

staining their wet mouths in ripened eagerness