The body has two seasons and doesn't exist to be changed; it itself changes-as moths come into a field, then the hunted deer. Who knows from the outside where death grows? A man rubs his eyes as if to recover some first sight. Clouds scuttle. There is rain; there's snow; a northerly wind crushing in its teeth the year's seeds. He is pushed inside out like a glove showing its lining. Things simply are. First published in @3The Kenyon Review@1, Volume 22 #2 Spring 2000. www.kenyonreview.org/roth | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE BEACON; A MUSICAL DRAMA by JOANNA BAILLIE WOMAN'S CONSTANCY by JOHN DONNE ODE; SUNG BY THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS by W. T. ADAMS LET HER SLEEP! by JOHANNA AMBROSIUS SONNETS OF MANHOOD: 5. ETERNAL by GEORGE BARLOW (1847-1913) THE DEATH OF A DANDY by JOHN PEALE BISHOP |