On every forehead, the label warned
"you were meant to be blossom or a halo
of circling doves... naked, except for joy".
Then wind separated sea; the spirit found
its famous groin and fell asleep, haunted.
They built churches. Columns, arches, spaces;
body of stone, glass whose heart trapped light
in the shape of a sword pointed up towards oblivion.
In the belfast, doves circle round the vining blossoms.
