III

Pasiphae, pacify our ecstacy and revolt
as high winds snap the washing-line
and rectangles of bright light fade the sofa
under the window and the patina
on the shaft of a crook turns pale green.
It is an easy and automatic defection
to wash smoke and rust off the ikons:
we don’t suck out of dry rivers these days
in the textual suburbs though following
may lead us by the noise in the streets
to a city transformed into sea
possible neumes and flexions
where there are no trees for the cicadas.
Corporate imaging softens and deepens
a plastic technique in saffron and mauve
pretending not to know what ‘human’ means
though it may have no use for it
or have a use for it but the wrong one
fumbling for change as if all that matters
is the coinage of needs unaware
of the real existence led by women
shining wide in a portable wooden cow.
Mooching in shops for remission of debt
entranced by a snow-white form.