From my second-floor prison cell
my yellow eyes can spy the rolling fields and blooming wildflowers
but when I dream, I see both wilt and seed: Winter and Summer.
Behind these iron bars I glimpse the birds’ chirping song of springtime –
up above I soar on wing and sky atop roaring oceans.
The seasons pass like the minutes.
When the storm gusts beat against the fortress and her cinderblocks,
and my tail silently whimpers against the concrete floor,
my celestial body sails through time in a fantastic hurricane.
Bones wilt through the turning hands of time,
dust grabs at the break of dawn,
littermates cry at the first moon.
When I run aground to shake, the interludes roll off my sleek pelt,
waterlogged pages surfacing only when the moon pulls the tide.
My eyes are bright with the eclipse of time.
I will stay rest here, I think –
paused on a dreamy spacetime shore.
I can see the shivering pelt of silver stars up above the warm sea,
so bury me in the sand while time contracts outside my lovely view;
let me grow old.
No, roar the waves.
And I return to dust,
a grief that leaves me too sick for words.