Winter

Winter I picked for my favourite of gems
and I plucked them with pain from your jaw and your teeth,
then I polished your molars until small golden coins
gnawed away at my tongue, though incorruptible flesh
has never been dear, or has ever been healthy for those who're inside
yet still curse at the sea, or are known to prefer a beverage of marble,
or sand, or crystal or power, have hands that will grapple with creatures so sour
that they click their own tongues at the hour of waking
of alternative living, the violence and reading, the seafaring scrolls
in sanskrit or spanish are assonant with whalish
or thought, and wires that moan,
pyres that long for a body that's gone
from a skylight the irides left are now burnt
to the sky, and write in the clouds,
purple not orange, and hope that the word in the heavens
reads better than braille, alms for the blind
who have stabbed their own sight with arrows of peace
and rise like a dog who's been given a name, 's been given a bone
dry as his throat, salty as Summer,
molten in fires that melt the acacia
in the fairy tree copse and their gifts of speech give
to the transmuted demons, the sandpaper mutes, and his grace the dauphin
has approved the command, they nod and they benefact,
and with money of mouths pay the hell where they live
and biting the hand of the devil.