To Night
Night as dark as Miranda’s face!
Believe that it was thus you hugged
this kissing life that faint breathed
shook out tears on the wind;
bisons, black-hoofed,
broke through the twiggy sky; clouds
like pink ladies ran before that blue veined bitch,
she who fought the simple cliffs, dunked the sun,
and shook darkness from a sea-shell.
Thus it was you formed an ocean
on my lap and rolled there
as if you owned the place,
with the cold of your nose on my face
and a word from the back room.