Wife

The picture of her half-moon face

and horsetail hair hangs in my mind.

She has the hands of someone

used to pretending about straight lines and

answers : the fingers crossed at all angles.

From her shoulder three shafts of lupine urge out—

the yellow flowers aching for a home.

And the black birds.

Don’t they always come uninvited—

don’t they always crowd in?

They ask where the boy has gone to.

He is with the weather and another [mother].

Peek in over a shoulder : the angry blades.

See the sleek neck of a crow race through—

there and gone—

there and gone.