it seems to me that the child is beheaded –
there is not much to look at in this paling weather.
moderate climates douse their bleak, blank face-ovals,

their frigidity has no relation to stone,
their silence, loveless as a fabric is torn wild
by a rabid dog, dragging it senselessly against the furniture.

outside, the whiteness bears no reputation of laundry
impaled to clotheslines: frilling at the collarbones,
fringing at the high afternoon, distinct flutings
of iridescent night-gowns,

they want the life of some lovelorn progeny.
the scald of water is his trademark – it seems innately natural,
those who, someone else lauds the **** verdigris
  of trees, able to tell how immense the stasis
  of the darkness is, outside when all homes bellow
a concatenation of absences:

  it seems to me the child is guillotined at this
moment, verily, in moderate climates.