The Mask And Knife

And I would have you clad like dominoes
In every stripe and lozenge you would dare,
A gauged discord, irregular and clair,
Or corsleted in ribands like a beau.

Be armed by shells, those profits of the sound,
As slippered like a prince in modesty
You softly fly the docks as coarse sail cloth
Swelled by the wind and sailing bluely north.

O jacketed like jockeys in a silk!
I'll have you rayed and tangled in douce ropes
Where hawsers found their ships at captive ports.
Odor of fur, a belle cool din.

Till when the shock of one dark pose
Makes leapt commotion like a white furore
Of one wave, only one wave seen
Raging on the night-paned seas

Or as the spring unwinds the flood
Or as a perfume galls the scrupled blood
And you have yoked me till I cannot break
Though broken I as uncouth horsemen might

Bully a spirit to its brink.
And your very name -- its lips make weights in me.