Fever Dream

I enter and my dog takes in his jaws
The heel of my left shoe, a grip of steel,
Portis my dog has seized and holds my heel

Captive, best left bestial greeting this
Domestic mammal in a captive room
Reminds me of my promise and of his
Fulfilled in homage to a bestial groom.
 
What's this behavior of beavers building
A dam without wood in a barren cage?
Is this like that, a beaver in a cage
Building a dam in a pantomime and yielding

An eerie satisfaction on the page,
Act of a blind mime on an empty stage?
Who is the audience? Who watches from
Beyond the footlights, or is no one there?
 
What naked truth descends this ornate stair
Accompanied by some lugubrious drum
Into a scene with trees all wildly burled,
A faery tale forest from a childhood world?

In this place we strike poses, we pose them
To ourselves and suppose, assuming this
Position and that in an ultimate
Yoga of concept, asana of ear.
 
In this place I am Mexican and then
More Latinate, less literal since when
A feral man whose bark bites sharp with wit
Breaks vaguely over peachy cheeks in tear:

Only the wind at last and nothing lost.


KLK
2011