Aubade
by Ken Poyner
My beloved is waiting in the barn
With a potter’s trowel. She made
Excuses at dinner, was allowed to leave
The recklessly untethered table
Before the maiden dessert course.
Out of the back air lock she ran,
Over the gravel to the guttering cries of the
Unicellular creatures in the cracks left
Between individual stones, her tungsten
Boots quivering along the rapture of
Her sandpaper thighs, her mouth cocked
Into the round O of a galactic serendipity.
Here I am, hands in my proud pockets,
Wanting to know what animal she will be,
What languages we will bury between us.
As I pass - disquieted from the dark
Of our open sea into the light
Of the closed barn, with a snap
And a spin and a joy of too many
Testicles - she, leather-backed and stamen crested,
Tosses me the slither and coil of that trowel,
And I am instantly bemoaned: I am to be judged.
My love, I disband into intentions,
And with loathsome joy I dig.
Gyroscope Review 22
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