provost 88

as if through some forgotten fault
a rugged asbestos spire purports
unappointedly above its urban parapet:

this is the inauspicious bishopric
that deconsecrated your wing
and disarmed your prayer

internally, your landing gear regressed
and your wing-tips dimmed as gently
as the sundown of a pilot’s eye:

dreaming elevators being lately unexercised
with inevitable time the creeping ivy awakens
and the lichen clamours for quiescence

look – the provost 88

snow

we prodded amongst sudden ruins
carefully dismantled accidents
with safety-belt sentries that returned
without protest to their positions

these denying moments made silken webs
of spilled reveries and unmade windscreens
whose cold fragments crackled beneath our soles