Poem: A Lover's Recourse (atopos)

atopos / atopos

She says there are more than two ends to every stick.
I think there are exactly seven to my stick.

Red altars hung on the outside and kitchen walls.
Every round bracket insisted on an incense stick.

The carolers sang by a streetlamp in my cross-stitch.
White and pink ribbons spiraled round the candy stick.

Modest by European standards the concert hall
transported to the “New World” on a waving stick.

At two and ten o’clock of the field helmets waited.
You can’t distinguish me from others in our stick.

Trampling up and down the Lakes District, Anna,
we cut from the green wind a stout walking stick.

The sixth was artistic. The seventh was obscene.
Let Paul not be an end. Let him be Jee’s stick.

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