Fabula

Rooted, the stolid bulb nestles in the causeless
As obsidian shadows dance across the damask
Where all is rain in the furthest pinions of the sky
As a circular stone collects silver ion whispers

She is crepuscular, waif-shrouds among forest fingers
A dancer’s gate that dare not crack the venal clay
Sends alabaster petals along the last simoom
That breathes incarnadine the volleys of love

Woven in lights to the histones in my bones
Where blizzards of desire spend their downy fury
The labyrinthine foci of enveloping chambers
Blasts a single flower upon the green

Daniel Staniforth (from his poetry collection Weaver in the Sluices, Skylight Press 2010).