I reread this book during a recent clearout/reorganizing of one of my bookshelves. It landed most definitely in the keep pile. Here is the lead-off track, if you will.
The Young by Roddy Lumsden
You bastards! It's all sherbet, and folly
makes you laugh like mules. Chances
dance off your wrists, each day ready,
sprites in your bones and spite not yet
swollen, not yet set. You gather handful
after miracle handful, seeing straight,
reaching the lighthouse in record time,
pockets brim with scimitar things. Now
is not a pinpoint but a sprawling realm.
Bewilderment and thrill are whip-quick
twins, carried on your backs, each vow
new to touch and each mistake a broken
biscuit. I was you. Sea robber boarding
the won galleon. Roaring trees. Machine
without levers, easy in bowel and lung.
One cartwheel over the quicksand curve
of Tuesday to Tuesday and you're gone,
summering, a ship on the farthest wave.
