George Szirtes
The Island of Dreams
On the island of dreams a woman with solid hair
is flanked by two handsome custodians.
I fall in love. It’s that firm halo of hers
that fascinates me. I fall in love with her voice,
her eye-shadow, with the frailty implicit in her gloss.
Suddenly I’m in a bedroom, the occupier elsewhere,
being perfect, since perfection always occurs
elsewhere, in a street, at the tip of a nose,
in a voice beyond itself located inside a mouth,
and it is her mouth that leaves me with no choice
but to love and desire. It is not precisely youth
that grabs me but the island of dreams, the loss
of that solid hair, the warm breath that hangs
about her, the deep park lodged in her lungs.
(from The YouTube Sonnets, The Springfields)