Nasal intonations of light
and clicking tongues * * *
publicity of windows
stoning me with pent-up cries * * *
smells of abattoirs * * *
smells of long-dead meat.
Some day-end
while the sand is yet cozy as a blanket
off the warm body of a squaw,
and the jaguars are out to kill * * *
with a blue-black night coming on
and a painted cloud,
stalking the first star
I shall go alone into the silence * * *
the coiled silence * * *
where a cry can run only a little way
and waver and dwindle
and be lost.
And there * * *
where tiny antlers clinch and strain
as life grapples in a million avid points.
and threshing things
strike and die,
letting their hate live on
in the spreading purple of a wound * * *
I too
will make covert of a crevice in the night,
and turn and watch * * *
nose at the cleft's edge.
