Acorn-brown, the girl's new nipples
draw the young men's rooster eyes
where a woman is fitting a man to her mouth,
breathing fire, holding for dear life.
Green almonds in their shells:
she knifes them open one at a time and
hands him a slick teardrop, cool white
tasting cool white. Nothing
compares with such austerities, although
the skull's honeycomb of bone
will break their hearts, who need hearts
like a bird's wishbone, to bend, unbend
at every feathery beat—wishbone hearts,
or something fleet and light as an ostrich's
leg-bone, bearing him to where, panicked
with grief, he can bury his head in sand.
Papyrus light: a scarf with black parrots on it
lifts in the breeze, and a real rare bird
is about to fly—his head in the clouds, his life
shrouded in daylight he keeps breaking.
