The room they stayed in, of burnished gold,
Sleeps in monarchical hues, like queens of old.
We cannot enter, desecrate
This looking glass that lets fall its duties of state
Stands traitor – a window, a mirror, in its way,
A fallen guard, exposing newly-weds where they lay.
Did they look out, from their private paradise
Imagine, in centuries to come, world-weary eyes
That rest in colours of consummation
Like holes in towers in a walled in nation.
Alas, poor Ezra, institutionalised
Whose images left him undisguised
What poetry can save the wearied gaze?
What rest for the walker of forbidden ways?