, Poetry Society of America, 2005]Harem
Eunuchs gather as groves
in a sultanate of snow,
shadowing each cow
as she grazes, starves or calves
before calving-time.
Weathers, deaths, rivulets
away, discarded velvet,
gummed by blood’s birdlime,
will frill saplings and deadfall:
moss ottomans
and racket share one season.
Until then, one bull
descends. His tracks: cleft.
His path:
harem-culled, swath-
cut. His antlers’ heft:
one wet meadow,
sixty swelling bellies,
the bells of sego lilies.
Especially now, his rivals grow.
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