Two Poems

Horus and Janus

The Stars

As streetlights flick on like a dead bulb coming back to life,
the tripswitch tink of extinction becomes a bright keynote.
Its timbre has no echo, not really, unless that potted lemon tree
by the door, bit to the root at birth, a dogged stump that
                                                                                  strengthens
every year with calm neglect, is rattling sympathetically. Could be.
Beside it lies fruitshaped, plumlike and leaking on the
                                                                                    underside,
a not-yet-rotten windfall. Destiny bakes it in a load of cobblers.

You did the washing-up! Twice! And my ears unblocked,
aptly enough, while I was plastering a crack over the sink.
Emblems of domesticity, these are the minuscule repairs
to tiles on vessels entering an atmosphere of resistance,
the torrid marriage of air and delicate gesture, the tact
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