CRAFT
The cook will make the carpenter a cake:
ovens cocoon the butter, flour, eggs, milk;
out of this certain mystery will break
a butterfly, a sponge of saffron silk
to give to him whose hands know how to make

a table that turns oak to perfect light:
proportion dawns with setsquare, smoothing plane;
his mitres float; feathered dovetails take flight
from woods transfigured by his chiselling brain.
He sells to one whose hands know how to write

a narrative, a text for other men,
nice work - and clean - licensed, airy, refined.
He takes his baking paper, bradawl pen,
then offers fabrications from his mind
to those whose eyes and ears hand back again

words, unconsumable, like yours, hers, his;
I, too make messes: our ingredients
breathe cartoon bubbles that no longer fizz,
sound capsules, leaking, seeping, losing sense,
incapable of rendering how it is.

FOOTWORK
Neat puffs of cotton wool between her toes
(the varnish must not smudge on to her skin)
she opens up the little pot, dips in -
a brush-stroke thick with Ripened Cherry goes

from nail to perfect nail in heavy drops;
she's bending forwards, thighs apart, breath held;
her hand is steady till each blob has gelled
and dried to hard enamel.  Now she stops

and buckles on strap sandals, zips her dress,
buttons her coverings.  It's turning cold;
she waits for Zeus, the swan, the shower of gold;
who else could see she's ready to say yes?


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