Waif

Waif

A coquettish dart will fly from you,
You facsimile of an ingenue.
Here it comes, across the air, the flat wide air
that opens out this rural room
like a sigh.

Your eyes? Sunk ships that loom
from a pale depth eddied only
by faint, faint lines not yet
allied with time.

Lovely mummer with a sour mouth
and lids that hate me;
their pits are punctures, awl rounds,
as though
the cultureless violence in your glare
was threaded there.

You click your heels to turn in
a derision you can't quite summon.
The clickclickclick like the steel
of a man's finger ring
on the butt
of his gun.