Still Life with Nervous Animals
       

Too much was stolen that day to change
his mind. What grew on the goats stayed on
the goats as he fell into himself.
The revolution was flattered, talking into a microphone
that resembled a human body. Misery assembled
with a peculiar silence, diseased and searching
through his childhood. But it was the years afterwards
that he meant to explain, how a certain dream
sang to him, then flew away. He wanted the shivering sheep
to keep to themselves, not to wander toward

wobbling drapes the color of his incredulous arms. Streets
beyond his window offered refractable light.
What could beauty or politics do with him except identify
hands and legs? He was crawling, dragging
what he could from the explosion that confused
everything, interrupted the flies. He was burning
with something he called perfection. He would create
what he could in that country filled with mistakes
and contradictory instructions. He would paint notable
animals from somewhere else. The kangaroos were waiting.

Tweet

Copyright © 2022 Laurie Blauner All rights reserved
from A Theory for What Just Happened
FutureCycle Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission