("O make me a mask and a wall...")

u

O make me a mask and a wall to shut from your spies

Of the sharp, enamelled eyes and the spectacled claws

Rape and rebellion in the nurseries of my face,

Gag of a dumbstruck tree to block from bare enemies

The bayonet tongue in this undefended prayerpiece,

The present mouth, and the sweetly blown trumpet of lies,

Shaped in old armor and oak the countenance of a dunce

To shield the glistening brain and blunt the examiners,

And a tear-stained widower grief drooped from the lashes

To veil belladonna and let the dry eyes perceive

Others betray the lamenting lies of their losses

By the curve of the nude mouth or the laugh up the sleeve.

ur

Not from this anger, anticlimax after

Refusal struck her loins and the lame flower

Bent like a beast to lap the singular floods

In a land without weather,

Shall she receive a bellyfull of weeds

And bear those tendril hands I touch across

The agonised, two seas.

Behind my head a square of sky sags over

The circular smile tossed from lover to lover