Send me to study for years
in a school for lace makers
till every yard I work
can bear an angel's weight,
a single inch change anyone's mind
about heaven,
my Point de Venise black gloves
be fit only for Ash Wednesday,
my white Needlerun veils
the best friends of British Summer Time.
See how openly I retire into my calling.
In time nothing
will rival the cautionless caution
of my Crown Prince's christening robe,
a delight of twelve-legged spiders and luck-diamonds,
or my Honiton mantillas all flowers,
snails and slugs.
The patrons of my lace -
let them be fox of the north wind,
egret of the dusk,
owl-man limned in stone.
Come on, you teazy little day, let me wake
to a pricked-out pattern, my work pillow waiting.
I'll quell love
with a relic-scarf of beggar's lace
fashioned from threads
thin as eyelash of snipe or curlew,
you'll prefer your heart
to be broken when you wind such a scarf
as mine around your throat,
making thrice the winding of it.
I'll bobbin joy and grief into such lengths,
such exhibition pieces,
lace magnificats fit for the highest bride,
her sheer train seething with grace,
or a shroud too perfect
for anyone but you to don
so subtly will I have created
its rose, its diamond, its honeycomb ...
