Creature From The Black Lagoon
       

I am guilty of eating a chocolate chip muffin
In the afternoon with three red grapes
And not a drop of tea. All of nature creates
A monster that follows me down the street.

A sign suspended by invisible wires
Swings over a walrus-sized pile of gravel.
The sign reads "English as a Second Language."
Two young women and a young man
Laugh in another tongue as they walk by.

Someone spent some time drawing
Hieroglyphs in pencil lead upon the surface
Of this computer keyboard.
I hear a ringing in my right ear.

Earlier today, by the stream in Lamson woods
A Labrador plunged happily through the poison
Ivy and rolled in the mud and made nearly
Human sounds from its throat.

I count dollar bills in the cash drawer:
Twenty ones, two twenties, a five, and a ten.
Someone asks to break a hundred.
I give a nervous laugh.

The thing that nature has become has gills
And loves to stare at its own face
In a two-way mirror. The scientists
Have concluded they should let the young woman
Swim in the same murky pond again
While one of them carefully opens and closes
The refrigerator door to see if the light stays on.

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Copyright © 2018 Rustin Larson All rights reserved
from Library Rain
Conestoga Zen Pres
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission