Feathering Wheels
Steam driven, the old river boat
pounds up the night-lit stream,
each turn of its feathering wheel
a cataract of splintered moons.
There is a kind of cormorant
called cataract, plummets
falls straight on his prey
in a glory of blood.
A flash at the edge of the cornea—
firewheel of northern lights,
is the opening to a cataract—
a rush of vitreous humor
down the rockfall eye,
like waters falling down steep
cataracts dash into fringed
streamers of feather-wheeled light.