Driving

Some people look so much like animals
It’s unseemly. The conjugation of a man
And a bird, not heron nor dove, what obscene rites
Could solemnize it? It’s the only explanation
For the woman in the car driving past me,
Her elbow crooked on the door
Rude as a featherless wing. What has she done
With her beak? I can’t help thinking.
Did it hurt very much to wrench it off?
Does she keep it safe, waxy and curved,
In a special, satin-lined case? I’m more taken
With the bird-people than the sheep,
The dog-faced boy, the furtive-ferrety;
At least they don’t stink like the pissing ferrets
That scented an entire rented house, a shambles,
That summer I was in college and you
Were in Greece. Perhaps all Zeus’s bestial fornication,
His bull dick and his posturing, gleaming swan,
Were put to this purpose — a justification
For people who aren’t homely at all,
Who make you shiver, thrill to your depths,
The way you swallow an oyster whole in its brine.
I’m glad we’re not at a stop-light;
There’s no temptation for me to ask her
If she wants an introduction to the crows in my yard.
Who stalk and stalk, who don’t give me the time of day.
Who would never pin me down, those black wings
Spread wide, oh lovely dark carnal night,
Whose unplumbed intelligence doesn’t desire me
Or my soft, skinned mouth.