GIRL SINGING
The partridge, the russet bitd,
Lies gently on the cutting board
Between the blue bowl
And the sea-green decanter.
And a young girl
is
singing,
"A partridge in a pear tree,"
Adding, in a free contralto,
All those increments that return
Always to the partridge in
The pear tree. Perhaps she has
Only now turned from the mirror
Or put her diary aside,
Roused unknowing by a second life ·
She has received from the russet bird.
It is like some genre .painting
Come ·alive with a touch of blood.
I note this without irony,
And I intend no danger.
One tress hanging down,
She bends over it as over
A baby she
is
going to powder.
I do not know for certain
That she
is
serenading the bird,
Or why our spreading increments,
