I was saving up this poem to send somewhere, perhaps, one day, somehow, potentially, but in light of Craig Raine’s excruciating performance in the LRB this week, I’m publishing it online now:

CRAIG REALLY WANTS YOU TO KNOW

where his hands have been.

Picture that part – that inlet or islet
that only you know, that no other bed-pilot
could dream of reaching, even

were he or she to circle
his or her murmuring plane until dawn,
that miniature crashpad inside a micro-zawn
obscured by a freckle

no darker than the encroaching tan-line,
entirely secreted except on certain nights
and only then when particular rites
are performed – the sweetest part, the most obscene –

his fingerprints are on it
and it likely stars in a sonnet.