Your eyes are not eyes—
They never laugh.

Your arms and ankles laugh,
Your lips twinkle incessantly,
Your cheek is bland with mirth,
Your winged ear flashes backward—
But your eyes never laugh.

You do your best to arrange differently:
You heap your eyes round with playthings,
You tell them rippling ribaldries,
You dress them harlequin and clown
And send them skipping—
But they never laugh.

Many people, impelled by the bright altar of your face,
Come into the temple,
Now knowing that they cannot see your eyes at all,
Nor you theirs.
And they worship familiarly;
While I, looking close, am afraid,

For I see only a niche and candles:
A circle of hard flames
Around an unknown god.