Armchair

It is not as if you are a particularly charming armchair
although if you were an armchair

you would out charm all the polka dots and plaids and paisleys

and leave the solid respectable black leather and suede in full shadow.

Nor yet are you a sort of celestial sun of heart and magnificence too much to bear

though if you were how the planets would flock around you

jostling in their orbits to swing nearest to your blazing glory

and turning away in despair when you are too bright to see.

The sea and moon are too ordered for your likeness

for they change according to their laws and you only to your pleasure

how could any telescope chart the waxing of your presence

or sonar measure the trenches where your deeper mysteries lie

Besides you are dawn and noon and these ladies are only servants of the night

You are not the last great microcosm the smaller self of earth

for earth was made for your feet and voice and rule

and you formed for no master's hand nor tyrant mistress

to tease and prod and cajole is not your role nor will you suffer it

Earth is of the meekest dirt and you are nothing clay.

All these things you are and are not

All these things you are and are more

To list and argue, define and declare would take

a hundred years or more

and if I had a hundred years I'd rather

spend them curled in your lap

although it is not as if you are an armchair