One dark eye always looked away like
January and the wind took care of pages.
They chose anything: death, love, hearts that leak
Chamber to chamber, geometry, the stages
The Horse went through. What they’d been missing
Was the world beyond pasture when gods lived
And men breathed water. They were kissing
The leaves of the book and, had I not loved
Strange unalterable air, I’d have said
They were mistaking the pages for food.
Behind them, always, some danger about to erupt.
Overnight, grass became jimson and the dead
Browsed until dawn. They left nothing good.
Nothing one learned cannot delight or corrupt.
—from The Booth Interstate (Knopf, 1981)