brush of
          limbs on
          linen the
          lie of
          long legs limns
          lines of longing
          pressed from a bed
          whose forme
          prints every sheet
          of pillow talk
          with fresh scatters
          of hair, form still warm
          from the scattering hare
          who slept all night
          with open eye

                    *

Phoenicians shipped the consonants
and Greeks threw in the vowels

the alphabet     a silver net
to catch each word
                    sung out
     of the blue
               of the wine-black
throat of the sea

                    *

‘Queen’s metal plating, which the moonlight forms
on the bottle-green Sea / the water bright,
but the Green of the water not bright’

     [alloy for teapots etc.
or did Coleridge recall,
tenth day at sea, how
                    tin
                    antimony
                    bismuth
                    lead
had softened or hardened
     every word of his printed?]

‘made a different colour
     from its natural blue whiteness’

                    *

          each letter salvaged
                      each word
          hand picked
                      for distribution
          until the case is closed