39

To Fight a Shadow War

(A Troop Ship Sails)

Dark sky rise up.

Let sail through his ship

where no star ever ran

named by my lip

past sunset’s blood-bright cup,

my heart’s spilled talisman.

Because no sorrow

enunciates such cry

in all my labyrinthine halls

echoing memory,

today denies tomorrow

before his left hand falls.

In disbelief,

at the sun-ship rail

watch you the eastering darkness flow

while great gulls wail

in widening arcs their brief

goodbyes to you who go.