Four Steichen Prints

The earth, the rock and the oil of the earth, the
slippery frozen places of the earth, these are for homes
of rainbow bubbles, curves of the circles of a bubble,
curves of the arcs of the rainbow prisms—between sun
and rock they lift to the sun their foam feather and go.

. .

Throw your neck back, throw it back till the neck
muscles shine at the sun, till the falling hair at the
scalp is a black cry, till limbs and knee bones form
an altar, and a girl's torso over the fire-rock torso shouts
hi yi, hi yee, hallelujah.

. .

Goat girl caught in the brambles, deerfoot or fox-head,
ankles and hair of feeders of the wind, let all the covering
burn, let all stopping a naked plunger from plunging
naked, let it all burn in this wind fire, let the fire have
it in a fast crunch and a flash.

. .

They threw you into a pot of thorns with a wreath in
your hair and bunches of grapes over your head—your
hard little buttocks in the thorn—then the black eyes,
the white teeth, the nameless muscular flair of you,
rippled and twisted in sliding rising scales of laughter;
the earth never had a gladder friend; pigs, goats, deer,
tawny tough-haired jaguars might understand you.