Skunk Hour

    For Elizabeth Bishop

    Nautilus Island's hermit

    heiress still lives through winter in her Spartan cottage；

    her sheep still graze above the sea.

    Her son's a bishop.  Her farmer

    is first selectman in our village，

    she's in her dotage.

    Thirsting for

    the hierarchic privacy

    of Queen Victoria's century，

    she buys up all

    the eyesores facing her shore，

    and lets them fall.

    The season's ill——

    we've lost our summer millionaire，

    who seemed to leap from an L. L. Bean

    catalogue.  His nine-knot yawl

    was auctioned off to lobstermen.

    A red fox stain covers Blue Hill.

    And now our fairy

    decorator brightens his shop for fall，

    his fishnet's filled with orange cork，

    orange， his cobbler's bench and awl，

    there is no money in his work，

    he'd rather marry.

    One dark night，

    my Tudor Ford climbed the hill's skull，

    I watched for love-cars.  Lights turned down，

    they lay together， hull to hull，

    where the graveyard shelves on the town. . . .

    My mind's not right.

    A car radio bleats，

    'Love， O careless Love . . . .' I hear

    my ill-spirit sob in each blood cell，

    as if my hand were at its throat . . . .

    I myself am hell，

    nobody's here——

    only skunks， that search

    in the moonlight for a bite to eat.

    They march on their soles up Main Street：

    white stripes， moonstruck eyes' red fire

    under the chalk-dry and spar spire

    of the Trinitarian Church.

    I stand on top

    of our back steps and breathe the rich air——

    a mother skunk with her column of kittens swills the

    garbage pail

    She jabs her wedge-head in a cup

    of sour cream， drops her ostrich tail，

    and will not scare.