(Manahatta, I’ve heard, was once the word
for “hilly island in wolf country”)
each was crouched in the bare-bone black-
knuckle misery of his private
winter. then come the intoxicant
of air. now, unfurling from our spines: small
creatures— a dragon, wolf, tender-necked
giraffe; the tawny, sweet-blooded
african lion; a witch stick-puppet
from our childhoods who flaps
her beckoning black
wing; our fathers, mothers,
young, are waltzing in harlequin-
disguise. __all these wild things
locusting like ghosts
through the crooks
of our cracked manahatta.
. . .while in pastoral quarters, bucks
______________________bang horns in the scotch-colored dusk.