Groping back to bed after a piss



I part thick curtains, and am startled by



The rapid clouds, the moon’s cleanliness.







Four o’clock: wedge-shadowed gardens lie



Under a cavernous, a wind-picked sky.



There’s something laughable about this,







The way the moon dashes through clouds that blow



Loosely as cannon-smoke to stand apart



(Stone-coloured light sharpening the roofs below)







High and preposterous and separate—



Lozenge of love! Medallion of art!



O wolves of memory! Immensements! No,







One shivers slightly, looking up there.



The hardness and the brightness and the plain



Far-reaching singleness of that wide stare







Is a reminder of the strength and pain



Of being young; that it can’t come again,



But is for others undiminished somewhere.





