Nicholas Manning
Two Poems
love poem 202
lock *
to firm this impenetrable
shade . . . we cannot understand
each : the thin aperture
is
broken
the brittle keys *
corrupted : the clefts absolve
all revolting melodies into mere
emotional plays . . . none of this is true :
life can’t be wrought like the perfect
object : entrance barred by
your golden
gaze
of empty light lacquered : it turns
what between us * will never
be made into what
is already *
gone
love poem 217
structure
sighs * its insight
to your height as bearing . . .
gone now I cannot
perceive but
in
forward motion
your elegance traces
air : pale perfumed suggestions
which in trapped * glass enfolded
are euphemismal mirrors
of the past night’s
preparations
before
the waking * eye
in its opacity encrusted
while you woke * to take your vision
of the toilette’s hot arrangements
what wet hair to language is
pricked with its wild
bright plumes
