cafe latte, st andrews style
one eye
and half of her mouth
and the occasional
sensuous bulge
of her mediterranean nose
half-masked
by the peppered head
and angled slump
and washed-out suede
of her father
or professor
or eccentric uncle
in the cappuccino heat
of her twirling shades
and fingered hair
where the minutes
in steamy slurps
and continental clatter
hiss like tongues
of cool snake
down the desert skin
of the air
and where I
marooned
amidst italian
macaroons
stoically
scottishly
drink tea
The Bull Stone
The bull stone,
worn in the middle
like a mother's aproned waist,
strains against
the tugging, pulling
rope of my arms.
A deaf conspiracy
of grass has grown thick
over the dancing ground,
over the few torn feet
of swollen scarlet earth
the bulls were baited on.
My tiny taurean hooves
slip through the wet green,
untethered, pink and yielding.
I climb up the bull stone,
crowned in daisies,
robed in bed-linen.
I am the white calf
my black brothers invoked.
Their blood is my ink.
My words are their horns.
I will gouge the land with my poetry.
I am ivory-skinned and unsacrificeable.
A spidery rain falls.
The granite mouth of my great-aunt's house
calls me in for my tea.
I dismount myself, my bull stone,
and snort at the lesser gods hiding in the sky.
