Andrew Quin

Andrew Quin Poems

The Best Poem Of Andrew Quin

Dawning

This moment holds a space;
Not sketched in arc by the scratching clock-face hand
Of sullen metronomic ticks to cut forever by degree,
Nor weighted in the mass of a falling grain of sand;
But spans instead the distance of my lovers dwelling-place

That lies alone with you;
In the membrane of a morning set to hatch
So placidly and spread its shell.Oh, rouse the burning, feathered cells
In the Tapestry of She! And let the long spark catch,
To brightly blaze, to fire, for the morning to subdue.

Drown in a flood of love:
But sleep your fill before then, adrift on this bed
Of our wind-tussled sheets and dream my girl, before our storm erupts
And sinks like hollow stones the screaming of the dead
And dull new day that breaks for others all about its curve

And idle crescent.
Not for them the timid light upon your skin
To see, entwined and seamed beside me, still asleep, as yet at peace.
Let the dawning of our day be born and let begin
Within the moment in these walls. Redeem the low dissent

Of a jealous dawn sky,
Immune to love, and the breath within her breast.
A coy and troubled brother to the sun now strains at the curtain crack
To learn what love can be: for it is here, at rest
With me, in the lithe and new-born nakedness of she and I;

(For it is here.) Here,
In the chain that gently links our fingers there
Upon the pillow: Here, in the hollows and the swellings of her skin.
Let the world know nothing. Leave it unaware.
Let me fall asleep, forever, in a grave made of her hair.

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