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The Strange Insect
The lights have gone out in the hallway.
The boy who polishes the stairs has found
a strange insect - he wants me to see.
It clings to his rag and won't shake off.
It is black and long, like a widow, or a
sacred priest, has a yellow necklace and
yellow beads upon articulated leg joints,
has a tail eight inches long, three plumes
of a tail, black like ripped lace; is thin,
thin like a straw, like a wasp, thin as a
quill, is hanging on a piece of what was
once a shirt, appears to have no wings
and not to know night or day, to neither
look up nor to acknowledge our regard:
ancient, hierarchical, the most mutant
butterfly, the wickedest jeweled queen.
The boy shakes the rag again, beats it
against the wall, and it drops, deigning,
into the dry fountain; grazes the brick,
drops further, lowering its banded legs
onto the blunted grass, drumming small
horny feet in a cadence, beginning to speak
with its hands moving in air, a message
beat against the floor of patriarchy, ceiling
of the world's brain, speaking reason to
desire, order to confusion, state against
state, telling another version of the world.
________
Cold Rain
Who is that, out in the silky darkness?
What is out there, moving through this cold rain?
Tonight the streets of our ruined city glisten
like an apparition in a black bead dress;
a huge woman lies down along the highway, sighing.
A vapor uncurls and falls asleep in the alley.
The rain spreads its long fingers on the glass
faces of office buildings; the rain's long legs open.
A minute ago I heard the sound of someone running,
clatter of hard shoes on pavement. It almost seemed
I heard the heavy breath of someone running.
Whoever you are, the rain so cold on your skin,
your clothes soaked and clinging, weighing you down.
The rain in your hair. Your white white face.
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