(BESTIAL TENDERNESS, 1981)

APPALLED AT THE DROPLETS THAT STAY, THE SNOW STAINING,

scared to think – bleeding on snow in this way

of when I’ll tomorrow unwrap with grin straining

the bandaged remains of my poems today

Tomorrow, ere I’ll sog hard bread, coffee-dunking,

I’ll first have to settle what I did tonight

what happened, from stains on the wrap un-debunking

– the pain that leaves feelings too dark to be light

Like an old back-to-front lead-well-read type-setter

daily I turn back the print of wounds bitten,

poems in words strangely unbeknown fourlettered

– that can be grasped only once they’ve been written…