The voice is arguably the ugliest
Of the century. She can work with that.
Her tessitura must learn to juggle
The empyrean reach of a jet fighter
With the root spread clutch of a squat
Olive tree knowing the earth’s weight.

The word in the skerrick town was
I was weird. A stranger came
Wanting to dump a mistaken purchase.
She had heard I liked good singing,
Like shouting above a storm your name.
A kind of neurosis she was bringing.

A black river. Incense-scented
Hypocrisy. Small boats spun by a current.
Oarsmen sculling for love half-demented.
The voice as thick as a spurt of blood
Scalds the corners of sense I dare not
Penetrate because I would make a muddle

Of what she’s offering: defenceless passion
That burns itself away like a candle flame.
Music is the sang-froid of her unreasonable
Commitment. Art like love is blind
And the minotaur has her cornered in his game:
Insists to the end the role she’s been assigned.

We like to make the women we adore
Suffer for our love, revenge for being born
Unequal to their incandescent core.
Once in Tuscany I watched an olive tree
Absorb fire that brought a grove to ruin.
It exploded a week later, a slow-fuse incendiary.