The Joy of Difficulty

A withdrawal from form
like the lock of hair found sewn
inside your uncle’s waistcoat pocket,
the inherited made strange
by its unheard-of colour.
Did you slip the suit on?
And if so did you breathe differently
as if equipped with an aqualung,
ladder or canister of oxygen? Better
to move freely, to come back early
to sail onto land continuous and bound
to pitch camp on a shingle spit
and to sleep through the coming loose
as it all accumulates to one end
while unmaking itself at the other
as if it were possible to do this
without drawing on old for new.