Anthony Dalby - For Neil...

Comforting snow sifts as flour at your tolling
soft feather down on iron clamped shut
sunlight touches the crystals
language drips from the icicles of your friends
their words flash in the winter light
fall to touch the hard iron below

Gorgeous lovers
strange moonflowers
as fine as fluted glass
carved chalk
his violet flowerbud lips cushioned against the varnished box
drip syrup against your maleness
fingers stroke imaginary thighs
to whisper profanities against your flesh

Delicous girls
touched by your innocent dreamings
reclining in the soft down of your memories
the safety and intimacy of your domain
opening in secret places
their dreams and wings
whispers and stockinged toes curling in your warmth

Father
held iron cold against his son
who dared open his soft lips to such a boy
stamped and ground out of his kingdom
uprooted as a weed
now grips the box and howls like a wolf
that his loins could hold such impotence
grinding dry dust knuckled against the hard walls
clamped in male iron
untouchable

Aunt
numb
that an angel so pure
could sin so well…

Creaks the snow melt creeps between the iron clamp stone soil
caresses the shell of the seed within

so begins the birth of the woman within the man

Anthony Dalby

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/for-neil/