The saris go by me from the embassies. <br /> <br />Cloth from the moon. Cloth from another planet. <br />They look back at the leopard like the leopard. <br /> <br />And I. . . . <br /> this print of mine, that has kept its color <br />Alive through so many cleanings; this dull null <br />Navy I wear to work, and wear from work, and so <br />To my bed, so to my grave, with no <br />Complaints, no comment: neither from my chief, <br />The Deputy Chief Assistant, nor his chief-- <br />Only I complain. . . . this serviceable <br />Body that no sunlight dyes, no hand suffuses <br />But, dome-shadowed, withering among columns, <br />Wavy beneath fountains--small, far-off, shining <br />In the eyes of animals, these beings trapped <br />As I am trapped but not, themselves, the trap, <br />Aging, but without knowledge of their age, <br />Kept safe here, knowing not of death, for death-- <br />Oh, bars of my own body, open, open! <br /> <br />The world goes by my cage and never sees me. <br />And there come not to me, as come to these, <br />The wild beasts, sparrows pecking the llamas' grain, <br />Pigeons settling on the bears' bread, buzzards <br />Tearing the meat the flies have clouded. . . . <br /> Vulture, <br />When you come for the white rat that the foxes left, <br />Take off the red helmet of your head, the black <br />Wings that have shadowed me, and step to me as man: <br />The wild brother at whose feet the white wolves fawn, <br />To whose hand of power the great lioness <br />Stalks, purring. . . . <br /> You know what I was, <br />You see what I am: change me, change me!<br /><br />Randall Jarrell<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-woman-at-the-washington-zoo/
