Black Swan

I told the boy I found him under a bush.
What was the harm? I told him he was sleeping   
And that a black swan slept beside him,
The swan’s feathers hot, the scent of the hot feathers   
And of the bush’s hot white flowers
As rank and sweet as the stewed milk of a goat.   
The bush was in a strange garden, a place   
So old it seemed to exist outside of time.   
In one spot, great stone steps leading nowhere.
In another, statues of horsemen posting giant stone horses   
Along a high wall. And here, were triangular beds   
Of flowers flush with red flowers. And there,   
Circular beds flush with white. And in every bush   
And bed flew small birds and the cries of small birds.   
I told the boy I looked for him a long time   
And when I found him I watched him sleeping,   
His arm around the swan’s moist neck,   
The swan’s head tucked fast behind the boy’s back,   
The feathered breast and the bare breast breathing as one,   
And then very swiftly and without making a sound,   
So that I would not wake the sleeping bird,   
I picked the boy up and slipped him into my belly,   
The way one might slip something stolen   
Into a purse. And brought him here….
And so it was. And so it was. A child with skin   
So white it was not like the skin of a boy at all,
But like the skin of a newborn rabbit, or like the skin   
Of a lily, pulseless and thin. And a giant bird   
With burning feathers. And beyond them both   
A pond of incredible blackness, overarched
With ancient trees and patterned with shifting shades,   
The small wind in the branches making a sound
Like the knocking of a thousand wooden bells….   
Things of such beauty. But still I might
Have forgotten, had not the boy, who stands now   
To my waist, his hair a cap of shining feathers,
Come to me today weeping because some older boys   
Had taunted him and torn his new coat,   
Had he not, when I bent my head to his head,   
Said softly, but with great anger, “I wish I had never   
Been born. I wish I were back under the bush,”   
Which made the old garden rise up again,   
Shadowed and more strange. Small birds   
Running fast and the grapple of chill coming on.   
There was the pond, half-circled with trees. And there   
The flowerless bush. But there was no swan.   
There was no black swan. And beneath   
The sound of the wind, I could hear, dark and low,   
The giant stone hooves of the horses,   
Striking and striking the hardening ground.