Half-naked

Picking up again, where were we last glance?
This on-again, off-again trading
Is long in the past.
But once, just once more
Is the price I drive too high
Or a bargain to last?

Pistol shots ring out in the dead of the night
Tonight let me bury it alive.

This Jesuit Jury was
Long on the benches.
In Boston it snows now
Like it did last Christmas.
Knock it out the box, kid
Straight for the fences.

My hope has now known fear, and in knowing returned.
It replies,

"A rapier week for week
I work, I work and watch shipwrecks recovered from
The depths, correct?"  It's just a question
And yes, I tend to live beneath her patience
With this grace there is much I have taken
But if it still snows in Boston
(And it's true, I'm a layman)
Then I am still needing favor.
So as this pad is my witness
I'll call Temperance my patron.
My life is signed within these lines
And every page her sanctum.
The still and silent prayers;
The laws of love and labor.
This house of oak, this house I know
Like an empty, empty painter
Half-taken.