Unicorn

Unicorn

 

What duplicity led you

To desert some virgin’s

Tense betraying thigh

And do battle with this lion –

 

And with what motive?

To plunder the narwhal’s tooth

That cleaves like a javelin

Between your bulging eyes,

 

So that it might be ground

To aphrodisiac, pulverised

To neutralise all poisons

Except enmity, against which

 

There is no antidote?

 

You must have been suborned.

Ah! No! You were goaded

To distraction by the choker

Round your throat:

 

That cruel, constricting Crown.

 

Poem by Giles Watson, 2011.

 

Picture: Heraldic unicorn, Binsey Church, Oxford.

Done