over your lap.
Butterflies' liveries
are scarlet and black.
They drive chariots in air.
People in the chariots
are pale as dew--
you can see right through them--
but the chariots
are made of gold of the sun.
They go up to heaven
and never catch fire.
There are green centipedes
and brown centipedes
and black centipedes,
because green and brown and black
are the colors in hell's flag.
Centipedes
have hundreds of feet
because it is so far from hell
to come up for air.
Centipedes
do not hurry.
They are waiting for the last day
when they will creep over the false prophets
who will have their hands tied.

: :

Night calls to the sandhills
and gathers them under her.
she pushes away cities
because their sharp lights
hurt her soft breast.
Even candles make a sore place
when they stick in the night.

There are things in the sandhills
that no one knows about...
they come out at dark when the young snakes play
and tell each other secrets
in the deaf logs.

Sometimes... before rain...
when the stars have gone inside...
the night comes close to your window
and sniffs at the light....
But you must not run away--
you must keep your face to the night
and walk backward.

: :

When it rains
and you are pulling off flies' legs...
mama lets you play houses
with Lizzie and Clara.
Because you are the Only One--
and because Only Ones have to live alone
while sisters stay together,
Lizzie and Clara
give you the dry house
and take the one with the leaking roof.

Rain like curly hairpins
blows on Lizzie and Clara's two heads
turned like one head--
two mouths
spread into one laugh.
Lizzie is saying:
why don't you want to play--
when you feel you'd like to braid
the crinkled-silver rain
into a shining rope
to climb up... and up... and up... into the wet sky
and never see any one again.

Our gate doesn't hang right.
It must have pawed at the wind
and gotten a kick
as the wind passed over.
The sitting sky
puffs out a gray smoke
and the wind makes a red-striped sound
blowing out straight,
but our gate drags its foot
and whines to itself on one hinge.

: :

What do you think I've found--
two wee knickers of fairy brass,
or two gold sovereigns folded up
in a bit of green silk,
or two gold bugs
in little green shirts?