(Sketch) Poem by Luke Davies

It's not that I could sketch the red
Gunwale of the boat
But that what emerges on the other side of red
Could go anywhere: that's what they call art.

Nor that the white swan over near the bulrushes
Flaps up out of the water terrified
By the barn-owl's shriek. Nor that the barn-owl wishes
For anything other than its own hard

Cry to shatter the darkening day.
Not the mist moving into the pines beside the lake.
Though all these things are true in their own way —
Without love I am broke.