In Beauty Bright

In beauty-bright and such it was like Blake’s

lily and though an angel he looked absurd

dragging a lily out of a beauty-bright store

wrapped in tissue with a petal drooping,

nor was it useless—you who know it know

how useful it is—and how he would be dead

in a minute if he were to lose it though

how do you lose a lily? His lily was white

and he had a foolish smile there holding it up like

a candelabrum in his right hand facing the

mirror in the hall nor had the endless

centuries started yet nor was there one thorn

between his small house and the beauty-bright store.