The Shrike

When night comes black Such royal dreams beckon this man As lift him apart From his earth-wife's side To wing, sleep-feathered, The singular air, While she, envious bride, Cannot follow after, but lies With her blank brown eyes starved wide, Twisting curses in the tangled sheet With taloned fingers, Shaking in her skull's cage The stuffed shape of her flown mate Escaped among moon-plumaged strangers; So hungered, she must wait in rage Until bird-racketing dawn When her shrike-face Leans to peck open those locked lids, to eat Crowns, palace, all That nightlong stole her male, And with red beak Spike and suck out Last blood-drop of that truant heart.