Let the Mystery Be

[rowens]

There's nothing in the window
that could prepare
the child outside the head,
the cat is not
what the newborn thinks,
crouching there, an arched black
soft foreignness erecting a smile
warm in invisible;
the kind of present
forgiveness makes
is not extant
in the very era
and every happenstance, midday, salted
conversation; the mouth and all
the senses once lunged
are not deleted, - outside
the head is a future bride.