Eric Stiefel: If It’s True of Human Nature

Actually, I hate the flowers—

now that the birds have vanished, as the last clouds drain away
and a thin light winnows down where a grove of bees used to flourish—

     and if you spoke to me of cruelty, I’d think about primrose
in winter, lying dormant in the dirt, holding itself frozen, while the leaves
left on the surface lose themself to rot—

I’ve been bestial and cunning, the way 
a troop of foxes conspires to survive the snow,
as winter moths lay havoc on landscapes of white trees—

and if you spoke softly, I might learn to trust you, even fold
as a feathered wing, knowing that you might hurt me

     and that that hurt might be a kind of devotion 
that we couldn’t explain, as the roof dulls the raindrops above us
into something bearable, 
                 as if we could know 
the limits of what we could bear—