That Place
Summer broke on the backs of children, even though swings performed miracles and breezes sang psalms.
For that summer, from the outskirts of some far off even whimsical place came the low resolute moo of a dragon.
A child, of course, could not recognize that fabled moo or the serpentine tail close to her feet, wound up among the thistle and milkweed like a hose.
Nor for that matter could she recognize the starry white bone left upright in the sandbox like some remarkable claw or shovel.
Not when the sun was out and games continued. Certainly not when there was summer love and rootbeer.
But at dusk when the fog crept in, thick and sweating,
suggesting some kind of burning far off, down over there,
(where someone once saw two eyes —pale as October moons— blink)
a child could know the meaning of fall.
And that August, two weeks before school began, some children went down to that place
and they never came back.
The Panther
The panther paces.
Waiting reminds him that clarity is painful
but his pain is unreadable,
obscure, chiaroscuro to their human senses.
In time they will misread his gait, his moon mad eyes,
the almost gentle way his tail caresses the bars.
In time they will mistake him
for something else—
without history,
without the shadow of being,
a creature without the penance of living.
They will read only his name.
They will be unable to perceive
what strangeness
lies beneath his patience.
Patience is the darkest side of power.
He is dark. He is black.
He is exquisitely powerful.
He has made pain his lover and hidden her completely.
Now he will never forget.
She will give birth to memories they believe he has been broken of.
He smells the new rain, tastes its change.
His claw skates along the cold floor.
Love curled up and died on such a floor.
He blinks. Clarity improves.
He hears other creatures scream and fade. But silence is his.
He knows.
In time the gates will open. In time his heart will open.
Then the shadows will bleed and the locks will break.
Love At First Sight
Natasha, I love you despite knowing love is more than seeing you.
(Untitled Fragment)
The angles of your wrists preserve a certain mystery, unknown by any lips or written down in history.
To measure their degree would solve the oldest questions — providence and alchemy answered in your gestures.
But god and gold will never rival the way your fingers curl. They hold my breath's arrival like a rare and undiscovered pearl.