Three New Poems | Standpoint

June 2013

THE SMALLEST PRINT

Everything we have heard and read
pushes us out to get the big contract:
‘with my body I thee worship.' There already
we see conditions to the important act:
‘in sickness and in health' ‘till death' and so on.
At this point our eyes cross. We smile and sign,
having, we think, enough to go on.

Good will has mixed and melted yours and mine.

It may take years to reach the smallest print,
where happiness hides: ‘no call for certain words'
‘days to remember' ‘power must be concealed'

‘flattery, to be offered without stint' —

clauses not noticed when the astonished birds

watched us undressing in that summer field.