We see wings brush the Milky Way’s back
on a walk across the hill under a moonless
sky and suddenly night turns on us like a stampede,
a crash from all sides we take for danger.
Rhinos from the bushes near the water,
buffalo rushing from underground, armies
on chariots swarming from the East,
and creaking tanks rising like hollow stones
from cracks in the ground we must have missed
in the dark. I fall, fearing the weight of the light.
I feel my love’s hand. I hear a wing snap on a thread
of muscle. My love smiles and points out the bear
and its constant asterism, bleeding from behind
like oil through silk, and I see the negative sky burst
above us. The world hushes. A breeze comes.
The grass scratches our cheeks. The bear drifts
softly, quietly down sky, like a black brush
dipped into water or passed across the wetted page.
