Keep in a Cool Place

A bee in a bloom on the long hand of a floral

Clock can't possibly tell the right time

And if it could whatever would the poor bee do with it

In insufferably hot weather like this?

Everything white looks washed, at the correct distance

And may be the correct distance. You could eat

Our biggest ship sweet as sugar and space can make her.

Every body's just unwrapped, one scrap of a shaving

Left for luck or the look, the maker's seal intact,

Glad to be genuine! The glassy seaside's

Exact to the last detail, tick of a tide,

Fluke of the wind, slant of a sail. The swimmers

On lawns and the athletes in cosy white beds have visitors

And more flowers. Poor bee! He can make up time

At frantic no speed, whether tick or tock,

Hour or minute hand's immaterial. That's

Exactly how it is now. It is. It is

Summer all over the striped humming-top of the morning

And what lovely balloons, prayer-filled (going up!) to fluke

For once and for all the right time, the correct distance.