Daniel Tiffany, p.3
OFF
Let it not be said
and the breeders rolled up the map
showing all the turquoise mines in Arizona,
evanished figures and landscape, live,
quasi-credent, eve-lengthened bud…
islet of ether in a whole Sky of blackest Cloudage.
Something came over them,
nay, the swan of objectation,
if that’s the word she used.
Cell floor decorated with torn strips,
weather fit for man nor beast.
It lived eleven days.
Of course, any child’s a picture of something
far away (and something close)
gone twice to seed,
but this one’s good for plenty more:
it took the mold of a wish—
come true—the kind that spells an end
to this or that, before its time.
A glimpse of something hideous
from her window the morning
she conceived. And, oh—
the policeman’s grin—
they both remembered that.
Let it not be said
and the breeders rolled up the map
showing all the turquoise mines in Arizona,
evanished figures and landscape, live,
quasi-credent, eve-lengthened bud…
islet of ether in a whole Sky of blackest Cloudage.
Something came over them,
nay, the swan of objectation,
if that’s the word she used.
Cell floor decorated with torn strips,
weather fit for man nor beast.
It lived eleven days.
Of course, any child’s a picture of something
far away (and something close)
gone twice to seed,
but this one’s good for plenty more:
it took the mold of a wish—
come true—the kind that spells an end
to this or that, before its time.
A glimpse of something hideous
from her window the morning
she conceived. And, oh—
the policeman’s grin—
they both remembered that.