---

Mammaldragons

Reptiles leave clumsy footprints
on our nights.
Our short mammalian life
is littered with lizards,
who on bad  and good nights
strike our friends with fierce tails,
recoil
for fear of hugging,
retreat as enemies pursue us
into our burrow.
We are startled
by mice memories.
Snakes hiss.

Too weak
to defend our territory,
we weep.
When the temperature rages,
despair drives us to the ocean
to join the fish.
We cling to them.
They shake us off
till we drown
or come to our senses
in the last second
and rush to dry riverbeds
to duel with Komodo dragons.

---

Longing

Glass swans squint
in the sun.
Thrilled? rays cross them
green and orange.

The swans? dream of being
desert phoenixes.

Come dusk
they sing
to passersby
and beg for praise.
 
Come night
they shiver,
long for molten glass.

---

Pardon

Predawn masks the window.

I miss the last first train.
An old woman takes off her dress,
revealing a diaper:
Outbound.

A homeless man with new Nike sneakers
waltzes me around the benches.
I throw him onto the tracks.

I am dragged to the courthouse.
The woman testifies.
The buxom judge nurses
the bald guard.
I stare.
Confess.
Pardon myself,
dance on the roof.

I clutch my heart
as catching a grenade
rolling on a bridge.

 

---

The dead are enamored

The dead are enamored
with fall.
Everything in flux.
Even the wind
goes round and round,
uncertain.
The sun plays hooky
most days
and the moon sliver?
wets fluffy clouds
with tears for mommy?.

The dead lose confidence
 all of a sudden
panic that, any second now,
they will crash and scatter
on the rocks.
They are consoled by pines
who lay for them
a soft bed of needles.