There are pigeon droppings
on my mane, but it doesn’t matter.
Nothing matters when you are
encased in stone. A day
or a thousand years are the same.
I cannot hear the city,
only the everlasting sound
of the ocean trapped in a hollow conch.
Before my fur was rock
it was the orange of chaos.
My gold eye, the fate
of wilder beasts, and my tongue
a sponge for lapping blood.
It is over, our time together.
Photographs dismembered,
plates broken like gazelles.
Another pigeon lands on my head.
I prefer this.
I prefer this to the steel bars
of your jealousy, and your fear
of being struck by fate.
DQ 11/16/07
