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A poem by Nicholas Laughlin

Published in The Strange Years of My Life
and previously in Blackbox Manifold, February 2010

Wiltn Diptych


Deux Lapins

The rabbit of the Andes and the rabbit of Sar-e-Sang,
eager to see the world, these little lords,
touring the volcanoes, insist a daily swim
to the true marine, these icy little twins,
and their eyes are glass of gold, fire-blue,
veins of angels, the virgin’s shawls and cloths,
her counting-beads, O Wilton, O Tibet,
O copper, jade, enamel, little saints,
roses for the rabbits of the mountains, purses of blood,
spendthrift travellers, Berbice indigo,
Lincoln woad, a parcel of hot pebbles,
a gem for each ear, each violet-embroidered glove,
O vanitas, a mirror cut from blue stone
staring into its own pure veins alone.

 


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