And Solomon Sang in Arden

Redbud to goldenrod, brown skeleton

Your cage of summer. Now the carousel

Flies over pavement, louder than robin;

Morning is broom, is monosyllable

At breakfast, sweep of straw and century

Down corridor, banister loud with school.

Seven years younger than the century,

You lived your reign out in the printed tower,

Rapunzel when peroxide healed the bee-

sting slowly and ran down your rungs of hair.

Your mother was a letter once a week,

Box of dolldresses and a cough that tore

Across a locomotive and High Peak

Reddening twilight. On the wide verandah

The couples whispered and the lanterns shook

Morning is mouse-pluck, devil to duefia,

But Solomon sang in Arden and Verona.