Silent Night
If you dare to let yourself out
in the starry cold, and sing
just under your breath
so your lamp flickers almost
to nothing, a giraffe will approach
from the veldt on legs that float
on a wind all their own,
teats swaying with belly-warm milk
for her calf, hidden
behind the lowest baobab limb. Then
she will bend her neck low
in the listening grasses, pause
as if she hears you,
offer her infant
a few leaves from Heaven, and keep
her distance.
Pleasure
Although the young sow will be slaughtered
tomorrow, right now there is every reason
to hope: a bucket of bruised apples
rests by her trough; the cold sun has taken
a few minutes longer to vanish
behind the silo;
a weed of a boy leans in the barn door’s frame,
one thumb in a belt loop, smoking deeply.
O goddess of all we know
and don’t know, accept this meager praise
for the worried wind that lifts his hair;
for the sweet-faced
centerfold pressed in his sock drawer, blind
to his lust; for moonlight
rendering the meadow ablaze with clover.
