After One's Own Heart

up and down
like some grand old duke

who never quite hit home
or heads of nails,

who never quite got over
the fence he was lying
on,

who couldn't quite stomach the broth

he was spoiling,
the broth

he was beating too hard;

who couldn't help recoiling
'neath the whims of loose limbs
long
-ing
in vain
for a change

of the heart
I refer to,
of the heart.

I prefer to
look the other way

as he slips down from out of my sleeve
and marches himself up
and over the hill,
pumping away
for another ten thousand days,

before his one final flutter
and his lonely column
of marching back down again.




July 2009