He is coiled in the hair of comets. He is chasing exploding stars. Through thick masses of vapor he spins outward, away from Jupiter, as he flies, courting his love. She stands at the edge of the silver pool crying over the water to her swan child. She sits before the fire and fans heat through the room the swan-boy sleeps in the cradle.
Icicles swim in the doorway all winter.
A star arrives from the North. They keep warm. My heart was seven swallows they had flown. There was no land for him to enter. The swan-woman sits in her doorway in upstate New York and strips the wormy apples, flashing the knife till she reaches new skin cutting a star by the core.