How they got into thought

– the swans –

nobody knew

how they would echo through logic

like a kite in the wind

and

like little girls

they would comb their feathers

with infinite time on their hands

– these swans–

had a sense of mission

but they are complex

creatures with sin as a stain

on their coats of snow,

who knows if they’ll go back

to the nervous quivers of the pond;

for now, they’re stuck

like a satellite

to the cusp of an hour

and I’m embarrassed

to admit

that I stare at them

all the time

as they sleep between

the chunks         of words.

 

 

Contemporary Poetry