Today, Tonight

Today, Tonight

Today, wild parakeets awoke
confused to find themselves chattering
in a strange patois.

Today, even the ants are tourists,
and the iguana, camouflaged as a mirror,
has forgotten his true reflection.

The goats must be sorry
they've eaten their passports
because today, like us, they're no longer

sure of who they are or what
they're doing here, otherwise, why else
would goats be swimming out to sea?

Even the ants are tourists:

they scurry among their ruined pyramids,
toting seeds as if wearing
tiny, white sombreros
a thousand times their weight,

but that's nothing beside the golden weight
of noon-

the heft of light on shoulders,
the giant shadow
each body tugs along-

so it seems impossible that a red umbrella
opened beside a chrome blue sea
supports the tonnage of a star
descending now too close for comfort

or that an eyelid
can eclipse such radiance.

As rising squid knew it would,
a moon that's been hanging around
all day, finally makes its move

and from groves of mango trees
fruit bats unfold their black
umbrellas and hurry to its pull

while a tide ripples through a choir
of mutts on French Town Hill.
Tonight, parakeets retire mimicking

the sputter of sunspots, of dying
frequencies, and citronella candles.
The iguana has assumed

the shape of moonlight.
Are the ants asleep?
Do they dream in unison?

They climb into the starry sky;
By dawn, they've carried off
The Milky Way.

Appeared in Poetry