"... Then the mother genii's belly opened;
Then, disgorging their arrows and their armor,
Her babies, slithering like cobras, were siphoned
Into the light; the Duchess began her war;
Her clouds arced over us, like dinner plates,
Exploded, and the shards massed into black skeletons;
They climbed towards us over the walls of burial plots;
Then her hot rain burst into our scalded bones,
And we climbed onto wolves and rode away, cowards;
It was autumn when finally we felt safe;
The grapes were shiny and ripe, unbled, uncolored
Still by their shame of us; we slid their soft
Skins back, like the shut eyelids of dreamers, and in
We curled, stunned, waiting... for the world to be naive again..."