Where do you think, serpent,
Where do you lie, beneath snow,
And with eyes closed
Breathe in a crevice of earth?

In what camera do you taste
Poison, in what darkness set
Glittering scales and point
The tipping tongue?

And where is it, you, people,
Where is it that you think, baffled
By the trash of life,
Through winter’s meditative light?

In what crevice do you find
Forehead’s cold, spite of the eye
Seeing that which is refused,
Vengeful, shadowed by gestures

Of the life that you will not live,
Of days that will be wasted,
Of nights that will not be more than
Surly masks and destroyers?

(This is one of the thoughts
Of the mind that forms itself
Out of all the minds,
One of the songs of that dominance.)