Reading your poems I am aware
of translucencies, of birds hovering
over estuaries, of glass being spun for huge domes.
I remember a walk when you showed me
a tablet to Burton who took his own life.
You seem close to fragility yet have
a steel-like strength. You help junkies,
you understand their language,
you show them the stars and soothe them.
You take near-suicides and talk to them,
you are on the strong side of life, yet also the brittle,
I think of blown glass sometimes but reject the simile.
Yet about your demeanour there is something frail,
the strength is within, won from simple things
like swimming and walking.
Your pale face is like an ikon, yet
any moment, any hour, you break to exuberance,
and then it is our world which is fragile:
you toss it like a juggler.