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POEM FOR VALENTINE'S DAY FROM TODD SWIFT


Honeybourne

No, no better name
For how we desire

To slip into heaven
By way of great fire;

My favourite station
With a short platform

Requiring us to run
Car to car, to reach

Its long wooden sign
Signalling bee work

Has come to fruition.
Now, when in Detroit

We saw cornfields rising
From factories cut open:

Pheasants in the rust.
A gun fight started up

Like an engine rattling.
It was dust-beautiful,

A glowing sad vacancy,
A king's failed skull

Who enjoyed many kisses.
Honeybourne is the shore

Far from Motown's husk.
It hints of sunlit combs

Greeting dusk, raucous
Glinting from new hives

That spill their lustre
So the blind girls passing

Know to freeze, to stare,
Then cry tears so genuine

They burst into gold coins
On bright cheeks. It brims

To slop what's most sweet.
They slow dance, catching love.

The words do this, alight.
Pack each good thing into sight.

 T. Swift
February 2015
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