Miss Leda

You think, sir, that you are swallowing 
Corruption with your beak
White feathers 
A bayou and a skull head
Outfitted in marble
We are gazing at the shore’s periphery 
Trees refracted in a geometric 
Settlement of waves 
Beneath the rain 
Waddle and contort your neck
As if no one had ever seen you 
Groom beneath a sprout of ferns
As if no one were watching you 
Beat shadows out of cattail branches 
Elongate your neck 
Oversee the reveries in leaves 
And wild boughs of columbines 
Excuse the skull