what is rue ? is it iodine applied
to the green river’s wound - or frozen streaks
from the frost’s hard hour when the urine cried
and sloughed off its flow down scabby creeks
is it a colour that hurts- like Neptune’s
blue troposphere where the dark spot revolves
cyclonically larger than any moon
while the hole disappears and rue resolves
nothing - on what surface then does pain
land unless lunar memory winds
retrograde and eccentric on a plane
at odds with truth - wagging their tails swans mind
the river sailing counter to its course
a pale bird rue siphons liquid remorse
Blackwells
Oxford
27 February 2018
“Cyclonically” has 4 syllables for pronunciation here.