To Artio

Because my love is like a bronze bear shambling
through thorn bushes towards a Gallo-Roman
lady, I, Licinia Sabinilla,
address this poem

to both your bodies, Artio – the woman
balancing a basketful of apples
between her knees, but also that wild creature
snuffling and whiffling

over gorse and sweetbriar, beseeching her second
self with doleful, less than human eyes to let
her taste even the worst-bruised windfalls, stolen
from some man’s orchard.


The Solan

Goose
or gannet, ‘whose
...