IN A RIVERSIDE MUSEUM
1
Little spoon
you fill the
spaces of my thoughts
with
reindeer
tiny and
spiky as thorns on a hill
and my
imagination
heaves with the
later
carving of horn
and the hand
that would etch
and whittle
a stag
onto the
scoop of your bowl.
2
You would
have been a rich man’s weapon
blade in a
river
surfacing
like Excalibur
(or a bit of
it)
during a
ring-road dig.
What
offering were you
to a Roman
god
what
appeasement or great wish?
3
Gilded now
in museum
light
you are
preserved –
or the one
remaining
side of you
is, for you were the first
of six strong
sides
around a coffin
of lead.
Where is
your vault and broken stone?
Dispersed in
earth and air
like a
chantry mass no longer sung
for a soul’s
relief
though
wealth was paid and set aside
for
indefinite
centuries of
prayer.
