Cirque D'Hiver

Across the floor flits the mechanical toy,
fit for a king of several centuries back.
A little circus horse with real white hair.
His eyes are glossy black.
He bears a little dancer on his back.

She stands upon her toes and turns and turns.
A slanting spray of artificial roses
is stitched across her skirt and tinsel bodice.
Above her head she poses
another spray of artificial roses.

His mane and tail are straight from Chirico.
He has a formal, melancholy soul.
He feels her pink toes dangle toward his back
along the little pole
that pierces both her body and her soul

and goes through his, and reappears below,
under his belly, as a big tin key.
He canters three steps, then he makes a bow,
canters again, bows on one knee,
canters, then clicks and stops, and looks at me.

The dancer, by this time, has turned her back.
He is the more intelligent by far.
Facing each other rather desperately—
his eye is like a star—
we stare and say, "Well, we have come this far."

- Elizabeth Bishop

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the patient

by the way, The Wenzel is doing just fine, although she apparently posted over in her journal when I was out of the room, and seems, um, a little unhappy with me. She's sleepy, seems puzzled, and she has kind of a "sick dog" smell, but I can tell that the anaesthesia is wearing off and she's OK. Poor thing now has to spend most of the next ten days in one or another of her crates. Her belly is shaved in such a way that she looks unusually small and thin, and her body seems to follow the curves of a sight-hound's, with that high, tight waist!

I still feel bad about all the cute puppies she won't be having, but this is a lot healthier for her and the world at large.