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| Photo by D.R. Wagner, Elk Grove |
365 POEMS
—Ann Stanford
They will be floating from my mouth like doves
like bright scarves from the sleeves of the magician.
Look, I am spinning five of them over my head.
It has been a bad dream when I
forgot to twirl one like a flag every day,
to walk into town like a parade
with flutes and drums, with timbrels.
They will be chariots drawn by lions.
They will be gazelles and leopards.
They will fly around me like a flock of birds.
They will be my traveling companions.
They will gnaw at me day and night
like minnows, or devour me whole like the whale.
I will stand among them as among trees of a forest,
calling, these are all mine!
They will tell me secrets.
Wherever I go like the roll of drums,
salvos of guns, rockets kindling the air,
they will arrive day and night.
I will beg them to go away.
They will torment me like gnats,
swoop by like hawks at noon, bewilder my dreams at evening.
They will say, welcome home.
______________________
—Medusa