JESUITS

And out their several windows
condemned to navigate the aqua sky, the schools
like horses whose wide warm teeth
as sweet as beechmast from star-painted trees
champ down on heresies,
inscibe upon the flutterings of seraphim
the oscillant radar of their martial stars.

Champing at heresies, the christologues in conference
prepare starpainted conclaves.
Hobbled by fallen fruit, the rain,
a little owl, tu-whit-tu-whoo,
burbles pagan trilogies. The quiet night
loves jets and sleeping dogs, the urban wood; the urban fox
coughs: which angel
traverses which stranger worlds?
Between which heights and hollows the reverberant revenant?

Cool moon. Empty road.

We twist in grammarian difficulty.
strangers at last under hydrocarbon dew