1.

In a mythical demountable

we are students of the sword,
cotton-gloved rabbits,

a few aeons late

to taste the blade’s full thrust.
Creeping green curdles bronze,

suckles the edges off. It sleeps
in its labelled, cardboard

coffin – one eye open,

aching to callous palms,

aching for salt and bone.
Bronze molecules grit

their teeth at tender reverence:

millennia of students

who stroke away

the knife’s last trace of blood.
2.

I shaved my legs before I came over.
You noticed, and said

they were whitewashed pillars,

artful ruins beneath the lights.
Maybe you should buy dimmer bulbs;

I wouldn’t want to you to surmise

too much. I’m here to forget.
You shine your torch

and chisel and brush, and

chalk an X over certain parts.