When you are older

When you are older
And the gravel steps march tea hunger
Ten inch incisors mark her hips
She watches his display of monstrous
Monosyllable reductions, courses
The wind in aromatic picture frames

Learns to make lean tidings for all
Tomorrows soldiers, and dances in the wind for last grasps
Of unregimented air.

When you are older
He doesn’t seem that indifferent
You’ll wonder if you are colder
Or if perhaps God preferred you a little more wrong
About maps and the surveillance of good tidings
That didn’t learn to judge
Monosyllables in the cold
Aromatic ditches of night
To hold on to love not reduced to craft.