(for K.)
The nightjars and their allies
have their heads down in the woods today,
dreaming of wild nights,
a chance to sing on the flickering wing.
And you my dark-haired songstress
could writhe naked on a bed of their feathers
as I touch with my aching fingertips
the tips of your sprawling bliss
in all that lushness between the trembling trees.
For you are dusky,
silky-tailed and
white-winged;
you are my European Nightjar
churring as I make you
spring to life in shivers of moonlight.
White-throated and golden,
star-spotted and black-shouldered,
you straddle your strapping limbs around me,
wrap my leaping heart in charcoal ribbons,
fly me screaming in a flock of black birds
and drench me
with jars of night song.
KEITH ARMSTRONG
