Dear bird of the early hours, little sharp-beaked,
brown bird, throat open, wise bird, jazz riff, cello start,
sad techno, harder heart, self broken / broken part, half
noun, verb start, bird till-death-and-dearest-part,
quickening and shard part, splintering
and feather voice, box lung, thrust voice
high strutter, sky grazer, floor grazer, leaf layer,
gallant player, lust sung, here we are alone together.
You’re opening my body to the night –
holding me together, throwing me apart.
• From the Keats-Shelley Memorial Association’s Odes for John Keats, an anthology to mark the bicentenary of Keats’s great odes. Details at keats-shelley-house.org.
