We trapped him—
the dignified male
with the graceful neck—

The duck dead and gutted,
we walk the vaulted cavity
to the heart; large,

After she pieced together what was done to her,
And he too realized what was done to him,
With reaching hands they feel their fingers

Each time my mind comes back to it, the reasons 
You gave me seem less substantial than before, to advance
Always less promise of an explanation

As if your half-witted tongue
Spoke with an eloquence
Death bestows, I heard your voice

How unreal to know you those fifty years ago,
Your shambling red-faced innocence as you waltzed
Her round the yard, her hard

        After the snow, after carved corpses
exposed the icy survival of the last 
     Donner Party members, the Belgian

On rocky Delos, no births or deaths were allowed
to desecrate the spirits of the stones—
but how did the keepers tell the dying

                If you were fired and were free to go
                  From Appalachia to
                  The Apennines, would you

Give up the yearning to be some
One other than you are;
Surgery leaves a scar.