Collected Poems

frantic blast of iron voice

shattered their stately march, then

recoiled brutally to my heart

as he gathered in hasty panic

the heaviness of his hind

quarters, so ungainly in his

hurry, and flung it desperate

beyond my monstrous

reach. I should have felt unworthy then

playing such pranks on the noble

elder and watching his hallowed

waist cloth came undone had not

his singer fared so well…. Two

quick hops, a flap of

wings and he was

safe posture intact on

brown laterite…. I could not

bear him playing so

faithfully my faithless agility-man, my

scrambler to safety, throat dilated

still by remnant praises

of his excellency high-headed

in delusion marching now alone

into death's ambush…. We were

spared, the bull and I, in our separate follies….

His routed sunrise procession

no doubt would reform beyond the clamor

of my passage and sprightly

egret take up again

his broken adulation