Time to Leave
By Paul Willis
In Keats’s house are many
clocks. They tick like spades
entrenching a grave
between his walls and Fanny’s
disassembled rooms.
Back then, the wine
cellar came all unstocked,
the birds undone—the virgin
pages made to bear
the hurried impress of his mind.
It happens that way.
The blood appears
in streaming clots, the day
runs out, the afternoon too soon
dissolves to closing time.
Put shillings
or a pound or two
in the slot by the door for young
John Keats. Or not,
and make an awkward bow.