Harmless, Recalled as a Fairy Tale

After our rendez-vous—this the last word he said, Waving to me as the train pulled away from the station. And so it seemed: harmless. Till evening brought The first prick of fever, which soon trellised my veins; At 2 AM came that knock on the city gates, Little pig, little pig, let me come in. . . . Ha! ever a bold and warlike people, we didn’t. Days of siege. We threw corpses dead of plague From the tops of parapets to frighten it away: But what was it? That vatic voice was not like his at all, and by its speech one could tell it somehow knew us well. The mystery deepened. A strange billowing cloud Made my people short of breath, I heard them wheezing. The end seemed near. What could this ailment be? Hunting  out clues, I went over the roses and snows Of his departed face like a treasure map, over His words hanging in air like the scrolls of Alexandria. Had I not been consensual, a free agent, Gay, single as any singing lark, who Chooses to unlock, to whom? Well? One night, finally, I climbed our tallest tower, lay In the open on its roof and had a brilliant dream. I saw my body nestled between angels Like the body of the prophet Jesus, I saw it Leaking from a finger’s tip like a slit ragdoll. And then I saw: this feathery, amorphous creature Black as mildew in the bath, soft as bread mold, Chewing on my bloodpuddings in the corner. And then I knew! That morning, I went out by the porter’s door Pressing one finger to judicious lips like Oedipus. Your name, I said,I have it now: Despair— Shrieking, it vanished with brimstone and flames. So I etched Harmless in that ground of merds and moss And to this day, my people listen to strangers crying wares With an intelligent ear, remembering our grave old danger.