Hotel in Paris

Night is a black swan wholly adrift

through liquid prisms of its own understanding.

It passes the moon and rivers; silos, trees,

gargoyles, grappling hooks, bicycles, torches,

mangoes, bidets, placentas, shepherds, silence.

It passes the emptiness of corridors and pits,

and approaches the gownlike whisper

of something sliding through alleys

to answer an old man in a dirty tunic

piping on a bamboo flute.

Night is a swan. We see its underbelly; we feel

its outer ripples: and the terrible strength

of each merciful, tucked wing.