Cygnus Dolor

Scooped up in your spatulate vocabulary
And tossed among your multilingual erasures,

Where the only terms left are the ones you’ve caressed,
As if you were the seasons carving hoodoos, winds

And frosts spinning fortresses and lazarettos
Into charming, tumbled-wall, open-roofed ruins,

We could only hope to be redeposited
Among your many lavish, art-house editions,

But we doubt we would survive your clattering bill,
Much less your churning gullet of helpful gravel,

As you lifted your elegant, snowy swan’s throat
To swiftly gulp valuables churned up for forage.