My Friends

My friends without shields walk on the target

It is late the windows are breaking

My friends without shoes leave

What they love

Grief moves among them as a fire among

Its bells

My friends without clocks turn

On the dial they turn

They part

My friends with names like gloves set out

Bare handed as they have lived

And nobody knows them

It is they that lay the wreaths at the milestones it is their

Cups that are found at the wells

And are then chained up

My friends without feet sit by the wall

Nodding to the lame orchestra

Brotherhood it says on the decorations

My friend without eyes sits in the rain smiling

With a nest of salt in his hand

My friends without fathers or houses hear

Doors opening in the darkness

Whose halls announce

Behold the smoke has come home

My friends and I have in common

The present a wax bell in a wax belfry

This message telling of

Metals this

Hunger for the sake of hunger this owl in the heart.