Love and Poetry (1992)

A sweet sting inks these words,
some bastard of the sea and sky
far stronger than the nets we cast.
all but dreams declare him god.

Helen has long been silent, but
sirens now in salt empyreia.
Sea roads turn home again:
I cross to her on blades.

Marital love is both siege and coil,
its bed sprouts nails of poppy:
our sighs coulisse a swollen door,
hard going most honeyed to arrive.

Sadly, then, embrace and psalm
imbibe fell Hector's swoon:
one fatal, one flawed, both just
finding what the other always knew.