See that vine crawl toward the darkness?

It’s nyctophilic as a Rave-addled youth.

“Maybe some genes got crossed — roots to leaves?”

Maybe, but how is it alive?

What winds it up enough to chase shadows to boarded mineshafts?

It might love darkness, but it’s not fed by darkness.

Some strange man called it “a canary in our coal mine.”

And that gave me a vague sense of foreboding.

I have room to breath —

my ribs can’t catch the edge

of this expanding universe,

and, so, I suppose the cage is irrelevant.

I can reach an arm as far as my shoulder allows —

as long as my hand slips through the slats.

With eyes shut, and cage in sway,

I’ve no reason to feel I’m in any particular place.

A mirrored world sprawls out beyond the glass.

I sit in reflection — a reflection

of a totem topped with an angry face —

a face so fierce its eyes will fry your mind.

The feeling fades, and I find I’ve crossed back.

Star-spiked silhouette of feathered palm
stamped against an orange evening sky.

It’s fireworks in reverse,
but with a little hang time —
but only a little.

Soon the sun will hide
behind the world —
leaving the tree to play
the role of a hole
in a patch of stars.

End of the wall —
End of the world?

Who can say what lies
beyond one’s line
of sight?

If you tell me,
“Thar be Dragons!”
in that sad, gray mist —
I can’t well argue the point,
but it doesn’t mean I won’t keep an ear open for wing flaps, and my skin tuned to flashes of heat.

This morning, walking, I saw a new door.
I’ve walked that stretch a million times, or more,
and that door has never been there before.

You probably think they just cut the ivy,
or that my imagination ‘s lively.

But, this evening, that door was no more.