Poetry 365

After Pat Lowther


Some men are beautifully
dysfunctional when you first
know them; the loss
of youth, integrity, or wife clear
in each lovely unsure gesture
you mistake for tenderness

but taking flight from you: look
how sure and purposeful
in every part:
their smooth machinery
moving efficiently away
as if engineered by Leonardo
or a god who gave the octopus,
not you, its obscuring spurt
and perfect whirl of gears,
its three hearts running