To George Herbert

Aspiration's breath, millennial trance,
two-pointed ladder propped in a void;
busy buzzard claws, verbs on a leash,
slow blush of brain damage on a plate.

Stunned journey of dust. A holey sock.
Grind of an afternoon's axles, abandoned
juggernaut in a field; inhabited interval
with a pencil stub, curved strips of silence:

postbox for the inner ear. Tarantula's footstep,
a weight of light: inadvertent sky in the skull.
Wishbone couture: promiscuous secret,

peepshow in the street. Paraphrase of planets.
Ocean in a tablespoon. Ordinary in the ordinary:
nothing come of anything, matter unpossessed.