‘Who’s She’ & Other Poems

Who’s She

after Arnaut Daniel

Sweet precision
of the mind-manifesting
voice of the birds, the luminous argot
blown from tree to tree just as we implore
those whom love makes us see more and less clearly,
you inspire me – whose perverted soul sways true,
straight in its windings – to conceive the finest
call, a chirp with no bum note or word astray.

Indecision,
that luxury! No dithering
could touch me when I first breached the snow
of her smooth ramparts, the girl I thirst for
with a wild intensity that is nearly
unendurable, the shining one, she who
...