Ice Bear Dream

What does it mean to have inky skin, guard hairs,

and glassy needles of fur that trick

the eye into seeing white, when there is none?

You are a cunning boar, sometimes crashing, yet

still graceful as you move from place to place.

Polar creature, Arctic heart, you seem to revel in

your accidental beauty. Keen of sight and smell

and touch. Patient enough to wait, then wait

longer for what you want most. Merciless with the

weak and always hunting. It’s all about the hunt.

The catch satisfies only briefly as does the ice cave

where we sometimes lie in raw embrace.

DÉjeuner

Stare. Stare until the canvas begins to tilt and shimmer,

until the moment four friends sharing a forest picnic

stir and bite into succulent peaches and plums.

Did I enter from the front or from the sunlit meadow

beyond? The meadow, I think. What happened to

the Musée d'Orsay? Is the giant clock still pulsing?

Do I have a time limit here? Am I clothed or naked?

Have I come with another cornucopia?  Filled with

grapes or cherries? It's warm, but I'm quite content.

Instead of déjeuner, I shall roll in the grass

with a bearded man. Then, even more content, I'll

lick peach juice from my lips, wipe it from my chin.

Cave of Night

Mind burnt by fever, eyes tearing, cowl of my gown

sweat-wet, I see a pulse of silvered fish steeped in

the chalky river of an underground ice-cave. No thirst

here or hunger, the only light—glint off a pale

phalanx of stalagmites. Each breath of mine, a chuff,

and around me, an ivory sheen, Above, a colony of

bats, albino wings clicking open, then closed,

as their mouse-squawks echo my own hoarse breath.

Ashy geckos ooze across stone shelves. Frosted snakes

and spiders skid. Everywhere, milky water drips.

Still, while silvered fish fin slowly by, in this cold,

I am hot. . . achingly hot.