Canto II, Looking Out The Window

Megan and The Principalities

She saw the thing in profile, or close to it.
Her eyes were riveted on it, and she couldn’t
Blink until she knew what she was looking 
At. Would it move? Would it look 

At her, if it actually had a face, 
As she feared? All these thoughts happened
Inside her head in three seconds and she
Barely noticed them. It moved. Its head 
Bowed low and left only a hunched 
Back visible against the dark sky. 
Something raised up, large and flat, 
Like a tent. But she saw there were two 
And it seemed rather that they were giant
Wings, at first mistaken for part of the roof.
They were stretched up and out, and then
Furled again around the creature, each.

It stood and took a backward step, and froze
And looked directly at her--
                                                  As if a beam
Of light had blazed into her eyes, her vision
Ceased and was overwhelmed, wrenched from her grip
And turned innards out so that she only 
Saw herself, from alien eyes. All
Was as a sea of bewildering chaos; she 
Was lost and felt under water. But then,
Like remembering which way is up, 
She kicked to the surface and found herself again. 

Agency returned to her and she 
Could look out at a changed world. The Reeds’
House, the window in front of her, seemed
The surface of some strange lake, and gave

Her the feeling that all of it could melt into
Another shape, or no shape at all. 
It was a heaving and roiling frenzy of matter,
The very sea she had just been drowning in.
It was everything. She looked 
Down at her own hands and they too
Belonged to the sea of particles. Then she saw
The face again, and this time saw it all.

The eyes were dark, emitting and reflecting
No light. The harder she looked, the better
She descried that face, increasing horror.
For instead of eyes, sockets only
Could be seen, hungry pits that drank
In the world, on a neck of perpetual swivel. 

She was so afraid, she dared not move,
To or away from the window. As if you faced
A bear in the woods and caught its gaze, amazed

And rooted to your spot, you wouldn’t risk
Doing anything to arouse it to action,
So she waits for the creature to make a move.
Below its head are only the hands, grasping 
The gutter, the rest spread up the sloping roof,
Giant wings half furled, and making
No sound. It shook and then it went

Like a cormorant without a splash
Down into the house, which rippled a bit and wavered.
Megan again was struck with the sense that it 
Was a miracle for anything to hold its shape, could feel
How much everything wanted to come apart,
Go its own way. Indeed, she looked around
Her, into everything, to find the reason it 
Cohered into these forms at all; there had
To be some hammer to sound the note which rang
In all these things, or some great drum.

There was nothing she could find, and nothing
To be heard; then her vision spun,
She lost her balance, came down to the floor
And landed with a small thump on her bottom. 
The world looked normal again, and sweat
Was on her upper lip and lower back 
And on her eyelids. The rain still came.