Wife
The picture of her half-moon face
and horsetail hair hangs in my mind.
She has the hands of someone
used to pretending about straight lines and
answers : the fingers crossed at all angles.
From her shoulder three shafts of lupine urge out—
the yellow flowers aching for a home.
And the black birds.
Don’t they always come uninvited—
don’t they always crowd in?
They ask where the boy has gone to.
He is with the weather and another [mother].
Peek in over a shoulder : the angry blades.
See the sleek neck of a crow race through—
there and gone—
there and gone. 
Orphan
Wife