Like a comb
found when unsearched for
missing some teeth…
Like forced smiles in a nursing home
Like a hurt animal trying to save some last moments
demarcated by some random feet of space
in the deep of an engulfing forest
(before the attack comes again).
This shelf
whose order was broken,
this shelf––
little holes of space––
belonging no more together
than separate.
Dusty remnants…
Does the dusty plane
maintain a solid?
Array of sordid
two and three dimensions.
This shelf bares its items
like a gypsy traveler abandons his circus.
He glares as the lion there
and is no less pathetic.
He growls at command,
snaring with hate and hurt
manifests
prosthetic and decayed,
chipped off fangs.
Every roar betrays
a throng of pangs.
The shelf laughs
and bares its soul––
some one took away
his things.
Some one took away,
from the shelf,
some things
contained some one
remained
some things
retained.
The shelf snickers and hisses
now
with
its maimed mouth.
And somewhere
a gypsy,
or a lion,
or an owner
mirrors and mimics
its shriveling sound.