Nine

Night a nine of diamonds

A woman lay and cries

At the sister of Mercy

On a Sabbath day

Night a nine of diamonds

As revealers commence

To shiver as she bore

In a babe, a radiance

Brave in constant motion

Wherein perfection brews

Darkness as his brother

Mischief as his moon

Summoning beneath

With his gypsy moves

Yearning as the foal

Shy and beautiful

Every card he drew

Had a different face

Lingering and lost

Unholy holy ghosts

I tend to play them all

He spoke with confidence

Another kind of strange

To shift in loneliness

He sought not for himself

The empire he would find

Save the golden womb

He enter in his mind

We will die a littler

The rogues whistling

Nine blue-eyed sailors

Tip their caps to him

As he passes through them

More vagabond than king

With diamonds on his sleeves

Like a harlequin