Even Love

Green light came down from the heaven of the jackals
and crisscrossed the room where the bed was slightly
disturbed, sheets damp, curtains swaying, curtains
on which strange birds were painted, their wings striped
and half-opened, birds of paradise with long tails
like umbrellas. The moon-colored bed that
the bodies floated on was tender as skin
itself. Even love, in some way, could be said
to be so wasteful, which was what the jackals waited for,
fed on with their thorny fur and snarls. Tongues
hanging, covers already tearing where they lurked,
lamps overturned where they prowled for something spilled,
circling the bed, snapping at air and lace, foaming
over seed or blood on the pliant white soil.

Anne Marie Macari
first published in Shenandoah, vol. 51, no. 4, Winter 2001
republished here from Poetry Daily 28 March 2003