THE TRANSMIGRATION OF CALIBAN

Once I had a little brother,

An ugly little brother that was I.

I was still in the nursery

When they nailed him to a clean white cross,

And said he was dead.

He flapped there all day,

Thin and stiff as a jumping jack.

But when I had gone to bed,

And the lights were out,

And the muslin curtains rustled in white secrecy,

And through the thin brown glass like onion skin

I could see the bright moon sag to the tree tops

With a heaviness I dimly understood,

While the haggard branches gauntly strained,

As useless to the moon as she to them,

I was rocked in an orange and umber cradle,

A rosy bubble light with fireshine

Floating atop the cold,

And my little brother was burning merrily,

His twisted figure

A writhing grotesque.

Yet his face never moved

And never burnt up.

And when I had drifted asleep

I still saw it

Like a reflection trapped in a mirror.

And I could n't brush it out!

I could n't brush it out!