Pastoral

The mordants in their noise,
the night transports.

A means of coming to
the switchyard of the tongue.

To have once
set such store by

forced creatures.
Not changed toward

something of my own.
The towns raised chaffed

seas to ground them.
In that frieze before

storm you went on.
Effigy loomed out

of cornfield. Future
inside its trussed forms.
Credit

From The Keep. Copyright © 2001 by Emily Wilson. Reprinted with permission of University of Iowa Press.