When hawks stop hunting the farmland I make
a cage of my forearms and trap my chest,
then chest and neck, then chest and neck and skull.
How pointless to hunt when expectation
of disappointment dominates the kill.
I will steal a cabbage and snap flowers
from the bloody hedge, and on my way home
will practice what I know – cultivation
of disappointment – and tonight in bed
will perfect the cage and trap my life and
death so none of my soul will leach away
(the problem is how to spend time and flesh
until nothing stands between bones and sky),
and all I ask is you avert your eye.