Fancy Beasts. Alex Lemon

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      it had only been dead a few hours

      What a strange paradise this is—

       languid apricot trees & birds

      of paradise. Tire-flattened

       oranges in the alley & ants

      in the hummingbird feeders.

       Neighbors peek from the blinds

      when the sprinklers torque on

       & I cannot romanticize this

      ultimate torture test. You say

       your foot is killing you?—well,

      hot damn, you are dead

       nuts, right on. That is the essence

      of all of this, isn’t it? So let me tell you—

       they begin as piles of bones,

      the animals in my dreams do.

       Each night, they clink & clonk

      & rise like a time-lapse video

       of skyscraper construction.

      One animal turns into a man

       & the man gives birth

      to a dead dog. In just seconds

       the other animals have rent them apart

      & then, I’m awake. Night swallows

       knife through the morning

      fog as I stand at the window

       listening to the coyote song.

      My entire body is killing me,

       & I have witnessed my own death

      & lived—I whisper my wagers

       against disaster into the dark air.