They've steered their flat-bottomed boat to the muddy shore--
Husband and wife--
And tied it down to a stand of cattails, black
Out of the brightness which falls from the traveling moon.
The marshland sings with mosquitoes
Under the barbarous stars
Whose silver scatters and gleams in the dark water.
This is bandit country.
The man keeps watch.
He smokes. He is at peace.
This life's all right. Push off when the sun
rises
And sail downstream all day in the heat,
Or in plum-colored rain pass by the banks
Like phantoms. Nobody knows who we are.
He smiles, reaches for his knife, laughs at the moon, his companion.
So. I'm a sailor now, whose father tilled the
soil.
His wife twists
Beneath the netting he mended this afternoon
But she does not waken.
A fretful woman.
She told me I snored last night like a braying
mule.
Good wife. Why does she grieve, pale
granddaughter of a nobleman?
Her black hair shines, wings of a raven, a
night full of stars.