SUNDAY NIGHT POETRY

After, The God
              (with thanks to W.B. Yeats)

Enter a young girl, neck
arched against the black loam.

History moves in quick strokes
through her; light bends in pools

in reeds. Carefully, the plumed air
harvests its fear, its absent voices.

Deneb in the Cross falls down
upon the beating wings. Rapid

light leaps at animal stroke and shudder.
A village sleeps, Only orphan dogs

hear the scaled note, high then descending
into false water. Tear of cotton, thin

scent of fennel, lemon in the bruised swale.

                                                         --S.K.