The Queen’s Face on the Summery Coin (op. 18, no. 1)

The Queen’s Face on the Summery Coin
by Robert Horan

The queen’s face on the summery coin
Was never golden nor more regal,
Than his body’s bright and busting bugle
Where once it walked between the stripes of rain.

The birds swing in their apply cages
And the solid sun will walk
Through straw houses where honey rages,
Churning the light to chalk.

The wind shines on the woody grove.
We live in a copper clock where on the hour
A polished bell divides the stem and flow’r
And drains the ghost-built body of its love.

Like the deaf, list’ning for a silence that follows no sound,
Or the sick, swung in the balance between wound and wound;
There is too much eye to see
All but the nearest disorder.

In the sable shadow of this harbor
He lies him down among the singing bees.