Shadow Dragon

I have seen you
lurking around parks at night,
your tail twisting around lightpoles
like a hungry vine;
your breath, a heavy mist
trailing its dulled claws across the ground.

I have seen you, old friend.
     But tell me,
what battle have you fled?

What adversary inspired such terror
that even you of valiant darkness,
would resign yourself
to this grassy lot?

Ode to the Tiny Fly

A fly landed on my pen --
a gnat fell sideways onto
the words I wrote,
determined to map out
this unseemly terrain which
appeared without end, but
                                       which
at the briefest flutter of wind
might turn fully on its side
                                      which,
though wide, did not bear the weight
even to disfigure his wings.

I could see the distrust in his hundred eyes.

Even as he traced with each of six legs
a path on the wide frontier of my paper --
his disbelief, that such an infinite land
could end at such a thin, empty point.

On Being Underwater

I held my breath and listened,
knowing that one false move
and the music would cease.  My body

floated just under the surface
which was smooth like glass
or frozen oil slick.

Air escaped my lungs
and pushed me down; the silver spheres
broke the still sky, shattering

its image across the pool's perimeter.
Slowly, the sound of a heartbeat
began to wave through the silence,
filling my lungs and my fingertips.