Time spun in the midst of antlers
and guns. It was hung with pine—
cones suspended from time
symmetrically, like icicles. Time itself
was surrounded by leaves, was draped
with a saddle, and horns. Above it,
the head of a deer. Above it,
on a tiny balcony in sudden color,
a general—and a fraulein, or queen—
in white, in red, in black. The balcony
pleated like a skirt. The fraulein’s skirt
un-pleated. Time
wanted to beat its wings, but had none.
Had, instead, a couple of arrows,
pointing at numbers. Time was caught
in a circle, but not for long.
The circle lay against a piece of wood,
and even that wood was a record
of longer time. One only had to look.
Time was surrounded
by a rabbit and an early conquistador
in knickers and a blunderbuss, but above
the spinning of time, even the stocks
of the guns, before our eyes,
were turning into birds.
And the birds began to fly