Fascinating button
Slip and slide through fabric,
A threaded loop,
Or a buttonhole,
And bring together
Two flapping wings of comfort
Into an elegant whole.

Caught by a coat’s black button,
Like Sir Roger de Coverley,
I am your prisoner
Answering questions
On sundry matters
Till someone releases me
With a smug satisfaction.

Cute button
In silk, mohair, diamond,
Porcelain or cloisonné,
You sit resplendent
On a hat, lapel or a cuff,
Demanding a stiff crease
Or a tight stitch.

You tell me to
Button my lips
To keep a queen’s secret
Or a mermaid’s story
Urging a cruel necessity to
To save the nation
Or the ocean’s secret.

You are there, smooth,
Unbuttoning her clothes
And firing my imagination
Sliding erotically through her fingers
Before the fabric falls
In a liquefaction
Of some orgasmic delight.

From sewing button
And campaign button
To Internet button,
And push button
You either hide or open
Earthly paradigms
Or an institutional process.

Slipping through frameworks,
Tasting puritanical vanity,
In iridescent inventiveness,
Appendage to my ego,
You fire my imagination
Through the graceful divide
Of the dull and the transcendent.