An Ideal Lure

              after John Clare

Sun-treeing, a tease, I of ten loves took leave
Or held vigils, moored sea-brood for pillow.
Woe's ripe swill thoroughly reeks of skunk filigree
Like hapless pie-shovelers mewling as they chew
And marbled, the stunned sky diminishes the beach.
Turned beekeeper on the berry hives of breath
And on the brink sea droves in blooming reach
Their sting's what's in the way of hot death
Wriggled out of smoke-stops ashed, upend their swarm
By cattails punking from the steaming marsh
While lilies moor their roots their shoreward home
And rebel to the very cusp in garish
Juiced light they whirl, summer's tribe and fathom
While otters writhe, heaving from the bottom.

Copyright © 2006 Sharon Dolin All rights reserved
from The Laurel Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission