The hard-polish, bank-floor
sheen of horse chestnuts
fall after fall showered us
with naval mines
fertile in the gloom,
each erotic as a Madonna
or the rosary beads of nuns.
My shrine lay deep in the closet
as the trees refused their vintage,
leaves baked in winter’s air.
In the dawn of March,
I opened that armory
to a spring moldy with verdigris.
William Logan’s new book of poetry, "Rift of Light," will be published by Penguin in October. His book of new readings of canonical poems, "Shelley's Wrinkled Lip, Smith's Gigantic Leg," will be published next spring by Columbia University Press.