A Bronte Gothic : Performed recently at Ilkley Literature Festival and Kendall Poetry Festival 2018 The Veil and the Wheel: For Jane Eyre My strength, My resolve is beyond all bounds. All Celtic curiosity Bent Concertinaed Up in my chest Crumpled Stamped Down Hard And almost absolutely. How did I arise? Where is the horizon I wished so ardently for? Again it telescopes in and in And lands up On my doorstep The compass is redirected true pole Magnetic North. Revolves not around a distant ice-cap But burning white hot Around this man This son of Adam This mirage, this distorting heat haze. Scintillating around his soul Making him imperceptible, opaquely glimpsed. Indistinct As though through fog. Do we ever truly see each other? First passion is a myopia, a veil. Wrought on a loom of steel, weaving a cloth of milk thistle Not easily torn in the first heat of knowing. The second is a shroud o