I wish I wish
that you and I
Could loosely link our hands -
And fly
To a little house in Somerset,
Where it’s always sunny
And always wet.
It’s green and gold with dragonflies
That whip themselves from sky to sky
With water pearling on their tails.

My sister’s house stands small and frail,
With roses big and peach and pale
Quivering like nervous girls
Encircling her door like curls.

The walls are dreams of drowsy pastel,
From the bannister
Hangs a satchel,
And the kitchen has a wooden table
That thrums with memories of drunken fables
Told in whispers late at night,
(A boy crying, jangling beads,
Overrun with strangling weeds,
His sister’s fingers,
Evergreen,
Plants flowers where the weeds have been.)

And she’s an artist, don’t you know,
She knows which way the colours go,
And long ago
She took some wire
And shaped it with a pair of pliars,
And added beads of deepest red,
Like globs of blood that’s been well bled
'Til it became a piece of art,
A huge
Muscular
Anatomical
Heart,
And she placed it on the mantleplace.

It throbs there at a steady pace,
A beating heart
Like a coronet
Placed on the head
Of Somerset.