West Wind, IX.

9.
And what did you think love would be like? A summer
day? The brambles in their places, and the long stretches
of mud? Flowers in every field, in every garden, with their
soft beaks and their pastel shoulders? On one street after
another, the litter ticks in the gutter. In one room after
another, the lovers meet, quarrel, sicken, break apart, cry
out. One or two leap from windows. Most simply lean,
exhausted, their thin arms on the sill. They have done all
that they could. The golden eagle, that lives not far from
here, has perhaps a thousand tiny feathers flowing from
the back of its head, each one shaped like an infinitely
small but perfect spear.