Purloined Princes
After “Hurt Hawks” by Robinson Jeffers
1.
The speckled stone was white, oblong, a split through the top, hollowed,
Abandoned in my garden weeds, dead stalks,
The ship turned statue, cold, lifeless. He emerged warm, shivering,
A bloody gash: his side caught, squirming
Through stone to free air. I found him, spent, black puddled in shadows, eyes live,
A slitted green-yellow like fall larch,
Proud, pleading, universal S.O.S., though he didn’t speak.
He never spoke in words. I heard it all.
Black velvet sides heaved—I slung him, light burden, home to stitch in life,
Panting under my touch: he was the last,
Escaped from a ruined earth. Four feet, four thumbs, forty built-in tools,
His whisker-thin, white warning grid floating useless,
No signals to tremble it to life. We spoke in looks, touch,
The treble of his voice a song, a mystery.
He’d rest, then fly; but he’d nowhere to fly. Nights, he snuggled between my breasts,
Warmth rumbling waist to neck like the husband I’d longed for,
A sigh shared, loneliness loosing its chokehold as we breathed the same air.