My tail is a burden and my salvation. Trees are my ladders and I'm wrung out. Dogs are my devils and we never touch. My friends and lovers chatter, a batter thickened by our long lives. Walls built to deter sieges are where we laugh and feast; the so-called apex predators live their prison lives in wood and glass cages while we own the outside. Crows are our cousins and the city is our matchstick; our free light incandesces from snack to scattered meal. What's a wheel-severed limb next to perfect harmony? Our yin makes yang from spring to fall. The balance is buried as color drains from heights and disinterred when the lawns freeze. Fences are our traverse. Meter is a second and tongues fill cheeks with shattered acorns. Each year is a long short story: lack, plenty, storage, lack (escape is the through-line). The epilogue is a dinosaur's mouse: we'll be here after the makers of our proliferation are reconstituted walnuts.
Roman Ryan 