Aten, where it is throned on the television beneath
the window,
Sees above and below and says nothing:
It enjoys the woman secretary and the road constructor
Who from opposite shifts of the sun
Come to it, the cat;
Follow the roaming in its mansion;
Pensively laugh as it clings to hundred dollar drapes;
Feed it holiday popcorn on the throne;
And close the drapes that the cat, Aten
Had opened by its tugging,
And will open again:
Opening below
Where the woman, statue of her liberty
Wedged in a mud layered hill of snow
Ankle-thrusts
The tilt of her body after a moment of standing
still:
Face looking in the trash receptacle that her
flabby
Breasts rest on the rim of and point toward; head
bowed
To the tin; And mind distinguishing between good
and
Bad trash. Her hands raise from the snow-blended
Mixture to push back the hair that was intimate
with trash.
She raises her head and glances up at the sky
that
She had noticed a few seconds earlier; and
wonders
Of the person who would throw away a nightgown
And wilted plants, dented but unopened cat food,
And scattered baby pictures--
But the cold wind pushes further into her rashed
cheeks;
And she drops the gown before she can mentally
conceptualize
The woman's possible image She digs further
and...
And opening Above where
Two crossing jet
Had each made an element
Of a cross in the skies---
A third, now, and the
Heavens appear to play
Tick-tack-toe with their bad arts,
Or do not know how to push out caulk neatly
When hoping to seal out the heavens.
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