Ubi Harold interfectus est …
– Bayeux Tapestry

Along the margins of embroidery
when the women grew bored with piety
they laced up grotesque cocks
standing prick-jokes about their husbands
all sorts of Godly lewdness
saintly bawdry
earthy women with appetites
kirtles fragrant
with hyssop, wild rocket and bay
myrtle and lavendula vera

And still there was the stitching
wool yarn on linen tabby-woven, a man
with an arrow in his eye
he tugs at it closed-fisted like a boy
priapic in a window
that look of far-away
a unicorn of a man
a king with a shaft in his head:
my own little king with his shaft
and its head blood-dark.