Here's another poem with an epigraph.
The epigraph is, "change my life, make it right,"
it's from Crosby, Stills and Nash.
The title of the poem is "Denials:
for the Student Dead."
"Tonight, final as a metal boot, the dark swan
has settled on the lawn.
His bones crackle like distant shots
in the unusual human position, and he surprises the children
by speaking.
The hoarse sounds from his long throat
are understandable, though whining as denials.
He tells the children to run, he'll
take the slowest away with him.
We watch.
The children scatter but the black wings
unfold faster than we could have believed he flies.
Be my lady, it could be a child's voice coming
through a cardboard tube.
The wings close over a girl who falls.
Sad, already prepared to deny that it
happened, we turn thinking the game is over, when we hear
screams.
The next day, we are still drunk with mourning.
We wander the grounds like chairs
in a yard under an ordinary sky.
A grandmother on the curb holds a boy.
Too late she sings for the day.
As always, love is rocking the country.
[APPLAUSE]