Gorgeous fruit,
You are the mercury and
I the *****, slanted surface;

Faults in the flesh cry
“Scarlet ants
To fill my dreadful purpose!”

My little voice that steals from the page
Can fill the singing water.
But I wonder often

If all my breath
Is in accordance with
That great tome

At the end of all our days
Which instructs us
In the proper use of semicolons.

Until we know, I bar my
Wanton lips.
Get up and bar my wantonness

That I should
Live in the sands I am
Allotted.

O despairing syllabus!
Can you- will you care to number
On the murmuring calendar all

The days you must
Wait for me to clasp
The iron bar?

Ay, with my teeth set as far
Apart as my shoulders
And my very animus

Sewn into the college ruled
Notebooks, records, loose-leafs
With looser thoughts.

What I would do without
The seventy
Anticipatory footsteps in the snow

Might stop the very
Pull
Of land and ship

And pull out every
Stop
From under our deck.

Gorgeous fruit, I ask
You to pull the pencil
From my desk and entice
Me once more from my bed.