by Shaun Lawton
I see a horse
racing the wind.
You see a trout leaping upstream.
He sees a dolphin diving
through whitecaps.
She sees a shark carrying
a child's arm in its smile
peering closer as if stops in its tracks
inside a vast a hall of mirrors.
I see clown faces
pressed up against the stained glass
panels arranged in cascading polygons
which suddenly become whales
bluefin tuna petroglyphs
of panda bears in the desert
small families hunkered in caves
while some sort of hummingsquid
shoveling for limpets gets strung along
the cordoned off portals of industry.
Meanwhile from the corner a ray of light
infuses the catastrophic
sculpture with brass scales
reflecting an array
of configurations
suggesting the loss
of the most pearlescent
petrified teardrop shaped
chambers of the hive
agglomerated into a comb
of spicy dust the polar bear
in hibernation must incubate
away from home as a drone
confiscated by the reflection
of the camera's panoptic eye.
I see a penguin
sleek as a curved chevron
sailing over the rainbow
and crying giant shifting blobs of tears
dropped elongating into runnels
left over from the burrowing worms
of time from the yumanitu
the stain we couldn't find
the glass in our mind
the flowing stream
of molten golden
memories lying frozen
on the catapulted ground.
You see a sedimentary slope
of layers stacked over time
since immemorial matters
came into fruition.
He sees hydrothermal vents
channeled by the fury
left over in the wind.
She sees a stray dog
she'd like as a friend
buried under an
escalating cascade
of recollections
to let go of.