It wasn't there, and yet we believed in it,
the milk-white beast, barleycorn twist of its
impossible horn, horn now proven
to be narwhal tusk; oh how we love proof.
It wove itself into the tapestry
of myth where we chained it in gold filigree;
let's say, yes, it is gold that enslaves it.
Its chaste self saves us if we imagine it.
In the garden where the pomegranate
evolves its own bloody secret
the creature that has never been
tentatively puts out one silver hoof,
shimmering and oblique as an antique
mirror into which we can no longer see.