And a manner of wine, and blush, and snails, and still too much;
This creature of dreams worn wild
This child in a churchyard of Autumnal bliss
I can still feel her tears through her wedding-white veil
And still all the near to love looks in her eyes
Always this burning of flowers on film
Yet still the sound of her footfall through cold hallway stairs;
This ghost of a life we had known to our heirs
That featherine slip of your breath unto theirs
And oft how I wish that your steam-engin'd stare
Had fell short of my perfectly-still glass of inertly swill'd well;
And still here I sit, as a beast in quieted waiting
Always how I feel you in breath on my skin
With a heat, and narrow, and rapturous arm 'round my too slinken neck
As our fire winks out
With a wisp into ignorant skies.
