Purity

There is a thin nail-pairing
Of a moon
And a single star
Framed in my window
As the sky descends
From aquamarine to navy
And here I am today
With Shelley
Thinking about his comments
On sound; recognise
How much my silence
Delineates me, how much
My heart is boundless
And frets in its cage
To see a moon and star so
And not rise to touch, to know
Their cold white song:
The smooth sleekness
Of the moon whispering
Like white silk slipping the skin;
The crackle of
Stars cutting the palm
Like diamonds
Sharp and hard.

But they give me
Heart, these bright
Beings
Alive and shining
In our sky

As if up above
All our dreadful
Sorrow and our fume
All our armageddon
Of cruelty's
Fall and rise

There exists something
Crucial and eternal, something
Clean
We cannot sully
Cannot writhe.

Their purity
Chastises us
With luminescent white.

And tonight I do
Obeisance
With my eyes.

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