796
PARTISAN REVIEW
To make her joyful; and the bars
Still caged her window-half a foot from mine,
It mirrored mine:
My window's window. On its cushioned ring,
Her celluloid and bargain cockatoo,
Yellow and blue,
Grew restive from her fingering-
Poor numskull, he had beebees in his tail.
'The birds inside me choir to Christ the Healer:
Thanksgiving's over.' She was laughing. Bars
Shielded her vigil-candle while it burned
Pin-beaded, indigo,
A bluebird in a tumbler. 'Let me go!
Michael,' she whispered, 'all I want to do
Is kill you.' Then the bars
Crashed with her, and I saw her vanishing
Into the neon of the restaurant-
Clawing and screaming....
'If
you're worth the burying
And burning, Michael, God will let you know
Your merits for the love I felt the want
Of, when your mercy shipped me to Vermont
To the asylum. Michael, was there warrant
For killing love? As if the birds that range
The bestiary-garden in my cell,
Like angels in the needle-point my Aunt
Bequeathed our altar guild, could want
To hurt a fly! ... But Michael, I was well;
My mind was well;
I wanted to be loved-to thaw, to change,
To
April!
Now our mountains, seventeen
Bald Brothers, green
Below the timberline, must change
Their skullcaps for the green of Sherwood Forest–
Mount Leather-Jacket leads the season. Outlaws,
We enter a world of children, perched on gaunt
Crows-nests in hemlocks over flat-iron torrents;
And freely serve our term
In prison. I will serve you, Love. Affirm
