Never Never Mate

The one I missed is this:

Grey fog soft swaddling rolling orchard hills,
Last yellow-brown apples dropping to bless the mice, in wet orange leaves
 
Salt foam sliding like a veil, lifted, falling, rising over rolling blue deep;

Heat shimmer dragonfly wing tilting in the wink of a golden, blue-eyed dog;

My never-was Mate is the coffee fleck of Showy Milkweed seed,
Borne cloudward flying over the valley on vanilla silkwing steed;
 
He is a rough, great trusty rope,
Coiled in the stern,
 Rough, comfort like whiskers on my cheek.
 I curl sleeping dark and close, chambered nautilus dreaming
Waiting nose to knee, falling ever end-to-end in dreamtime
Astronaut-tumbling under the rain-drummed tarpaulin
In the dinghy in the orchard in the cool fall rain.
 
Late, late, why so late? Whose love, my mate?
Did I fail to drop a breadcrumb trail,
Leave a match in snow unburnt?
Did I not sweep the stone hearth, bake crusty loaves?
Even so bone tired, churn the butter pale?
Seeking I consulted the minnows silver,
Strange school-darting, mercury sheets in the sea,
Faithful, I asked the moon to carry water for me.

Each gold bangle gift I dropped to release vanity
To watch slow sinking flashing turning tumbling
Toe- to-tail like a cat in amber dream,
Settling where I know it will always be, at rest in pillow-silk silt.
 
Did I not shear and burn my nails and locks?
Seal and sell the voice I have to bargain with
Wager with no lesser foe than the Angel of Death?
The Banshee Bitch of regret with her legion under-demons
Blackening the face of the deep?
 
Did my never mate see me feed the hissing, scolding geese?
Tend a thick-thighed, black-eyed, insistent, pushing horned and cloven herd,
Bruised by their bleating, butting, staring, shoving, wet wool-scented funk?
 
On my clay roof tiles mossy slick and cracked, I set silver offerings
To please the black winged raucous murder that settles in a strutting whip.
I sang praise for sweet, hunting brown-furred twilight bats
And dawn's rising blue-gold sparrows, blessing the brow of now.
 
I churned the butter pale,
Scented my skin, cleansed my sin,
Drew his steaming bath,
Poured him tea and ale.
 
Did I drowse forget and fail to hold a candle to his night?
Soup, crust, and wine drawing the thorn of day from my paw?
Seduced to nod by a soft hissing fire, forgetting,
When the window needed light?
 
Did I leave the lighthouse untended,
Wick ragged, tallow spent,
Too weary to climb alone, buckets brimming oil
Bone-ache ascent again the dark spiral stone-echo stair?
 
Where is the unforgivable in my works
What did I fail to see through?
To leave me sole and one?
Did I not prick my finger, spill blood?
I would thread the needle and backstitch
To join him, though it costs my very soul.