Robin Hood poem

I've been watching too much of BBC's Robin Hood. Poor Much.

The Merry Man

His inevitable breakdown sleeps
on the pad of reeds next to him

He is remembering when under the glass sky at Acre
like apothecarian examinations
he squirmed at you like
a broken little beetle
leaving arrow footsteps singing
in circles around sleep mats
to be brushed out in the morning.

He has strong little legs grown when the world was only
a bullheaded lion king
and hard charging, and bandaging,
now when he finally sleeps it is into the color England,
though he’s no idea why.

His taste in men is so singular
the point of a sword
or compass arrow.

But devotion does not mean full
so when he washes himself in the cracked water
when he washes your dishes and your clothes against his own skin
and morning warbles into the boundless color England
he senses the exact proportions of his loneliness.

Little beetle tramping
for him
it is a longer distance between spaces.