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Our
eyes meet for a
brief second as I
snake
through fiery branches
like a hunter in the woods
searching
for the clear shot.
I prey through this
make-believe
paradise
as he reduces himself
to
green curly hair, a red nose
& painted face.
Ruin
of old parlor tricks,
of balloon animals bent
into
shape—a giraffe, a tiger, a bird.
Trapped like a moth in
a spider web, a ghost haunting a farm.
He is lost in the strange beauty
of softened edges & shifting patterns,
a figure burned into
volcanic
rock yet able to awakened
the laughing monsters
in
our bellies, to make our heads spin
from the weight of his eyes.
I
wonder about the struggle
beneath his skin,
the
cruel unhappiness of his chest.
All this because I am interested
in
the music of strangers,
of the small deaths of the heart.
As
he leans over, his eyes
becomes a pattern of stars, tiny holes
into
a tincture of darkness.
The white paint he wears
—a
work of art by how it fits him.
I wish I
could anchor myself
down into his dreamworld
but I walk away, afraid,
wondering
if we suffer the same illness.
Poem copyright © Radames Ortiz 2002.
All rights reserved.
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