LADY PAN

For A.B.

Lady Pan, with your bare feet on the floorboards, to you
One’s words are solid gold and solid rock lying in insulin
Heavy and dangerous, so I keep these words outside my head

For there I find they bend better; and whilst quieter days than
Those which came upon us still dawn upon the world and general
Radiance falls on the window ledge, sunbeam against a northern

Frontier scene of pilots coasters sailors, in the sinister winter workers
Of all sorts come to you well known for their accuracy and logical
Composition, and to those born after. Harpoon is crueller than spear,

Yes? The little general on the big mount murmurs war is progressive.
Did you say phosphorescence, Lady Pan? What with laundry-women
Dyers barbers writers porters chauffeurs all around, I couldn’t hear.

Ah, if you could have seen her green eyes! My pale companion full of
Menace. And I? Well, golden lotus, I return at night to you, to my book.