Birds Birds This is not a cornhusk doll Dipped in blood In the moonlight Like what happen in America This is us Our eyesides snagged Dipped in mob In the daylight Like what happen in America The breasts are still heavy The legs long and straight The upper lip remains short The teeth still too small The eyeside is green The hair long and black Still coming through Still coming through She knows this room She can navigate it in the dark She entered the Palazzo at night by a side door To ascend in a lift to the upper floor She lies on the bed Looking up not yet seeing The signs of the zodiac painted in gold On the blue vaulted ceiling His enormous eyes as he arrives Coming nearer in the surrounding darkness His strange beliefs about the moon Its influence upon men of affairs The danger of its cold light on your face While you were sleeping She'll eclipse it with her head Stroke him 'til he sleeps Until he has nothing to do among men of affairs Sometime before dawn Her bare feet cross the floor She gazes from the window At the fountain in the courtyard "Sometimes I feel like a swallow A swallow which by some mistake Has gotten into an attic And knocks its head against the walls in terror" This is not a rabbit skinned With a body of silver Like what happen in America This is not a terrapin With its shell torn away Like what happen in America The breasts are still heavy The legs long and straight The upper lip remains short The teeth are too small The eyeside is green The hair long and black Still coming through Still coming through The mood soon changed In the clear morning air A man came up towards the body And poked it with a stick It rocked stiffly And twisted around at the end of the rope Finer than a hair from every side Finer than a hair Birds Birds This is just a cornhusk doll Dipped in blood In the moonlight This is just a cornhusk doll This morning in my room A little swallow was trapped It flew around desperately Until it fell exhausted on my bed I picked it up So as not to frighten it I opened the window Then I opened my hand