From the day I was born
I've been putting my whimpers
in the service of artists destroyed through starvation.
Had I been preserved in an alcohol cylinder
I could have turned my back on you for evermore,
yet I don't know by what occult means
doubt has been limping right behind me
and here I am today like a fool in a ship
praying, 'Lord, give me a ship,'
or like some extraordinary midwife
ready to deliver the porter out of the priest without pain.
The thread of Arianne's stocking in hand,
off I go dressed in a heavy army coat
watching the world through my top boots
as if they were two periscopes turned the other way round