A Man’s Not a Camel

When the sun-hunted moon cuts across the shoals, Its thistle students seem to vanish, And the train tracks draw a line in the land, As beneath a dismembered cloud, Time pockets its curves.

A wound pulls taut, silent, slow Through the grassy spaces of this wild land, As I watch the kind hunter retreat, To the call of the passing crows, Typewritten flourishes shiver my hands As I exhale into its void.

  • Ted Hughes