Unmended when first I read “Sandman,”
through light and books an anguish to excise,
girded in a cowl and shield of afghan
I dowsed the shuttered memory of a man
left – in his own flight from radula eyes –
unmended. When first I read “Sandman,”
bare feet pressed sharp scales, primed to shut the span
between the blue and green – anesthetize
and gird. With a cowl and shield of afghan,
I’d turn my fall to flight, in marzipan
drawn out from almond, sculpt out how to rise
and when. Unmended, I first read “Sandman”
with a shadow never still, sense entranced
by light and book. A goldfish-hope implies
that, girded by a cowl and shield of afghan,
I might subsume delight, soar out again
with stitch and gauge precise and harmonized,
ungirded in a cowl and shield of afghan,
and mended past the time I read “Sandman.”
