Blind bow spirit,

                           my mother,

                                               Beatrice

Forgotten, shabby and long time abandoned
          in stubbled fur, with broken
teeth like toggles, the old gods are leaving.

Now coming up on scherzo,
simulated situation based on big, big trouble.
Word good as broken-down bond,

                        —Dancer to Audience—

                           What works for me

             As in your flatland stillness you grow.

Sealed into the cocoon
Of light and water, face
And racked reflection, voice

Blast of harsh
flat sunlight

on recalcitrant ground

“Believing something will happen 
        Because I don’t want it to 
And that some other thing won’t 

      Those silly seagulls up in the sky over there remind me of

      A particular local postcard of many seagulls in the sky thatcould go on and on forever were it not for the edges

This is St. Rafael resigning from the service
Of the mad white queen. St. Rafael is no angel.
But Queen makes comparison possible

Pres spoke in a language
“of his own.” What did he say, between the
horn line