Brief Angel (audio only)
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I.M. of David Ferry
The mouths of the bankers are closed. The secret
Police dream of hanging and hang. The gallows
Lay down upon the hill and refuse the money
They are paid. The drowsy crows stand on the eaves,
Why would I abandon the hunger-suffering
Vulture, spread-winged in the middle of the road
Eating a rabbit while it snows? Wouldn’t you
Want to touch, watch his comrades close down the sky
And, in a black circle, eat red on the white Earth?
And when the hiss of something slithers in—
You are in the black car burning beneath the highway
And rising above it—not as smoke
But what causes it to rise. Hey, Black Child,
You are the fire at the end of your elders’
Weeping, fire against the blur of horse, hoof,
Stick, stone, several plagues including time.