Milton's Well

Predestination stopped her on the road,

speeding in some overcommitment,

racing impetuous down green skylines,

pushing the envelope of the just-possible.

On an S bend with reversed camber,

on a suspicious twist of black ribbon,

fate overturned her world at sixty-five,

crushed a tin bubble with fluffy toys.

And she crawled out of a smoking hell

to stand on skid-marked tar, broken.

Just out of sight, hearing the sirens,

lamentations of the ambulance, he,

heretic, regicide and divorcee,

sits by the water, blind and reflecting,

rebel angel after the Restoration. Now

God sprawls on his Cavalier throne again

after the civil war in the earthly paradise,

when sweet Oxfordshire was Lucifer's

hiding place along the burning lake,

when tyranny was taking back the sky.

The warts on the round face of Satan,

the bogus sainthood of the king,

the cannonades of both sides, bring

sickness to the soul. His lips move.

Eve, still holding the keys of ignition,

writes in copperplate as his whisperv

interrupts the dictation of the river,

gentle sound that goes on forever,

poetry of water running over stones.