The ubiquitous now come home to roost
Who'd went without space to occupy,

but eat the loving hearts & the tinned
wallpaper, pressing on the lonely beds.

The endless road, that voluptuary,
tacked them to a portion of ill making,

terribly sweet it filled a front room,
such venom leaving never a trace

traced the children who were fitted up
to suit its dispersed purposes.

Here is the exact spot. I rest my case
& yours, & your mother's also

mouths out of its permanent abeyance,
saying, take what you wish to make

jam, of its contents, of its kind.
I rest my case. The trinkets & memento

spill in like soft rain in a soft chair
waving their flag for England;

that was the road & this the annexe,
niche for the soaked wayfarers,

so assiduously their way was re-routed.
Flesh & blood bears flesh & blood

only so far; in passing you & I bear
resemblance burnt as track-marks,

lifted & shed on the slack hemisphere.
Witness it, winged seedlings, for

example you might flutter & rest;
settle for these ransacked; we occupy

their holidays & strike root, we
stoop to eat within the vacated cabins.