1 
She cleaned house, and then lay down long 
On the long stair. 


On one of those cold white wings 
That the strange fowl provide for us like one hillside of the sea, 
That cautery of snow that blinds us, 
Pitiless light, 
One winter afternoon 
Fair near the place where she sank down with one wing broken, 
Three friends and I were caught 
Stalk still in the light. 


Five of the lights. Why should they care for our eyes? 
Five deer stood there. 
They looked back, a good minute. 
They knew us, all right: 
Four chemical accidents of horror pausing 
Between one suicide or another 
On the passing wing 
Of an angel that cared no more for our biology, our pity, and our pain 
Than we care. 


Why should any mere multitude of the angels care 
To lay one blind white plume down 
On this outermost limit of something that is probably no more 
Than an aphid, 
An aphid which is one of the angels whose wings toss the black pears 
Of tears down on the secret shores 
Of the seas in the corner 
Of a poet?s closed eye. 
Why should five deer 
Gaze back at us? 
They gazed back at us. 
Afraid, and yet they stood there, 
More alive than we four, in their terror, 
In their good time. 


We had a dog. 
We could have got other dogs. 
Two or three dogs could have taken turns running and dragging down 
Those fleet lights, whose tails must look as mysterious as the 
Stars in Los Angeles. 
We are men. 
It doesn?t even satisfy us 
To kill one another. 
We are a smear of obscenity 
On the lake whose only peace 
Is a hole where the moon 
Abandoned us, that poor 
Girl who can?t leave us alone. 


If I were the moon I would shrink into a sand grain 
In the corner of the poet?s eye, 
While there?s still room. 


We are men. 
We are capable of anything. 
We could have killed every one of those deer. 
The very moon of lovers tore herself with the agony of a wounded tigress 
Out of our side. 
We can kill anything. 
We can kill our own bodies. 
Those deer on the hillside have no idea what in hell 
We are except murderers. 
They know that much, and don?t think 
They don?t. 
Man?s heart is the rotten yolk of a blacksnake egg 
Corroding, as it is just born, in a pile of dead 
Horse dung. 
I have no use for the human creature. 
He subtly extracts pain awake in his own kind. 
I am born one, out of an accidental hump of chemistry. 
I have no use. 


2 
But 
We didn?t set dogs on the deer, 
Even though we know, 
As well as you know, 
We could have got away with it, 
Because 
Who cares? 


3 
Boissevain, who was he? 
Was he human? I doubt it, 
From what I know 
Of men. 


Who was he, 
Hobbling with his dry eyes 
Along in the rain? 


I think he must have fallen down like the plumes of new snow, 
I think he must have fallen into the grass, I think he 
Must surely have grown around 
Her wings, gathering and being gathered, 
Leaf, string, anything she could use 
To build her still home of songs 
Within sound of water. 


4 
By God, come to that, I would have married her too, 
If I?d got the chance, and she?d let me. 
Think of that. Being alive with a girl 
Who could turn into a laurel tree 
Whenever she felt like it. 
Think of that. 


5 
Outside my window just now 
I can hear a small waterfall rippling antiphonally down over 
The stones of my poem.