IF I CAN'T DANCE

To see the cobbles
that lie
beneath belief

lift up the corners
of these dog-eared
puddles

and tell yourself,
after months
of drowned cheeks

lapped by ripples
(silent scores)
cheeks lapped

as smarts succeed
in the tricky
circus of a quad's

reflection,
how all power
(whether high browed

national monuments
raising the stakes
between cobbles

and culture,
or deep focussed
on the self

same images -
dissolving imprints
of chance illumination)

flounders

like faith
or light
deflected, see!

how the crenellations sweep
into a flight
from coherence ...

then dance away
in wonder

that power should be
tethered to a puddle

and rendered by it.