Late Air
Elizabeth Bishop


From a magician's midnight sleeve
      the radio-singers
distribute all their love-songs
over the dew-wet lawns.
      And like a fortune-teller's
their marrow-piercing guesses are whatever you believe.

But on the Navy Yard aerial I find
      better witnesses
for love on summer nights.
Five remote red lights
      keep their nests there; Phoenixes
burning quietly, where the dew cannot climb.