i.

Security Guard at Elephant & Castle calling my sweetheart a cab,
wolves in the wind down Government Street
while the Fire Brigade rages in the back hills

The Duchess-faced horse snorts, shifting;
The dung he drops
steaming on the cold cobbles.

Easy for Leonardo
the man-o-war a boy’s given to build
for Christmas.

The white desert swings:
a girl roping her longings
in.

	ii.
	Afternoons trim as an engraved silver tea-tray.

	Bachelor uncles who tried to rape one, always bachelors.
One met them alter at a wedding

	or a funeral.
		The lid’s ripped off things: Illusion shown the skeleton in the closet broken.

	Tall tales in Brown Victoria rooms
	and iced cake		when day is come, an albino confection: dead-center
	a marble grave with carved roses & fauns.