It will not call you from your sleep
or haunt the creeping midnight halls
with ivy cries.
It will not scratch the cellar floor
or hang its whispers in the eves
of your cracked house.
It won’t disturb the dust or blow
low curtains into empty rooms
lit by the moon.
or rise on moors made mad with rain
where scattered bones are pecked by crows
blind as bibles.
Not measured there in entrails wrapped
round knotted trees in dark door woods
alive with voices.
No, it will come in sunlight
last a season, transmit its fever
with a kiss.
JAN NOBLE 