A Crystal That Darkens

Winter is also celibate. The conscience is moving, A frozen light in a frozen eye. It's raining much looser, Down a ripped tree. I couldn't have, I couldn't have, in this sin-sick tenderness. ___ My face is cracked in my fawnlike fingers; And the nose betrays an inner child, who Wouldn't listen to sparrows about being catched. I just insisted fur was wings. ___ The feminine chill on the palm must be sorrow; When I think of church bells, or mother- That I am haunting as raw love.