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Revenant

By Rita DovePosted Thursday, Dec. 24, 1998, at 3:30 AM ET

To hear the poet read "Revenant," click here.

Palomino, horse of shadows.
Pale of the gyrfalcon
streaking free,
a reckoning--

the dark climbing out a crack in the earth.

Black veils starched for Easter.
The black hood of the condemned,
reeking with slobber.
The no color behind the eyelid
as the ax drops.

Gauze bandages over the wounds of State.

The canvas is primed, the morning
bitten off but too much to chew.
No angels here:
The last one slipped the room
while your head was turned,

made off for the winter streets.

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Rita Dove served as poet laureate of the United States from 1993 to 1995; currently she is the poet laureate of Virginia. Among her numerous awards are the 1987 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry and a 1996 National Humanities Medal. Her latest poetry collection, American Smooth, was published in September 2004.
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