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. |