A rotted swan
is hurrying away from the plane-crash mess of her wings 
                               one here
                                              one there

getting panicky up out of her clothes and mid-splash
    looking down again at what a horrible plastic 
mould of herself split-second 
climbing out of her own cockpit

and lifting away again and bending back for another look thinking 
                               strange
                                              strange

what are those two -white clips that connected my strength 
    to its floatings

and lifting away again and bending back for another look 
at the clean china serving-dish of a breast bone
and how thickly the symmetrical quill-points 
were threaded in backwards through the leather underdress 
    of the heart saying

                               strange
                                              strange

it's not as if such fastenings could ever contain 
the regular yearning wing-beat of my evenings 
and that surely can't be my own black feet 
lying poised in their slippers
what a waste of detail
what a heaviness inside each feather

and leaving her life and all its tools
with their rusty juices trickling back to the river
she is lifting away she is taking a last look thinking

                               quick
                                              quick

                                              say something to the 
                                              frozen cloud of the head 
                                              before it thaws

                                              whose one dead eye
                                              is a growing cone of twilight
                                              in the middle of winter

                                              it is snowing there
                                              and the bride has just set out
                                              to walk to her wedding

                                              but how can she reach 
                                              the little black-lit church 
                                              it is so cold

                                             
                                              the bells like iron angels 
                                              hung from one note 
                                              keep ringing and ringing