Wild

Now I dream myself a pair of wings.
Bat-like at first they spread across my cheeks
In the dark glimmer of a windowpane,
Fine leather stretching over hollow bone.
My eyes grow huge and frank in their pale rings
And feather-tufted, balanced on a hook
Between the fawny spectacles of down.
Now outwards, up, the wings grow stiffly plumed,
And angled at my back. I swivel East
To see the moon now hanging caught behind
The cobweb-patterned elms, and now tugged free.
Then, on the singing sighs of wind, the sounds
Scratch-scurry-patter-whirring in the grass:
A crooked ridge, its rocks as white as geese
And drenched with spray; a gushing rivulet:
Li T’ai Po borrowed Duke Hsieh’s storied clogs
To scale his azure stairways frail as fog;
But I wear only feathers, wind-fret sails,
And stretch my claws as if to snatch the moon.
Beneath, Diana lifts her head at me.
Ulula: hear her long contralto moan.