JERICHO BROWN

OF THE SWAN

The luck of it: an ordinary body

Soothed once

Under God. No night ends his

Care, how

He finishes a fixed field, how he

Hollows

A low tunnel. He released me

After. Why

Else would I pray like a woman Who’s ruined

A man’s ever-bitter extremity?

Men die,

But God’s soul rises out of its black

Noose, finds

Bared skin a landscape prepared

For use

Where worship makes for immortality,

And I am

The Lord’s opening, a woman

On earth

With pluck, with sting, with feathers

Left round my hide.