St Valentine

       Good morrow, friends. Saint Valentine is past:

       Begin these woodbirds but to couple now?

A glorious mane, a weight of silvered soot:

I wake to the smell of apple wood. An arm

overlaid, a quiet breath, a hood:

a murmur not quite heard, but understood.

A wheeling hammer's axis, near its head 

so that it seems to waver as it falls:

a slalom through the air, an oscillation,

a limp in Newton's gait: an imperfection.

If we wake now, and turn towards the east?

A clutter of trinkets that bring to memory

what's best forgotten: a dirty red and violet:

a blurred burst in silhouette.

Walk back, walk back. The hammer strikes,

rebounds. You have but slumbered here. Tell me

what the story was? I have lost track:

only that the hounds bayed at my back.