Our window gazes
into the red west.
Between their tents
on the terraced slopes,
men squat at campfires,
their pale breath
drifting with the streak
of smoke that spreads
under the trees
and will not rise
to the void sky
above the trucks and guns.

Not a leaf now
on the fruit-trees.
They swung in the mild air,
blossomed, dark green-leaved,
fruit-filled, and are
still, the old world
smoldering in their blue prongs;
and all day, in the smashed rock
at their roots, the dry tufts
have been stiff with frost.
This is the wilderness
of antlered skulls.

On our wall
is a still-life
of a dish of peaches.
You stand haloed, the light
darting like bunched knives.
Deliberative fingers
trace ciphers of earth and blood
around your breasts.
Your silk dress ripples
like a serpent's loosened skin.
The night is cold.
The dish of peaches
hangs mirrored
in the window's darkened glass.