Coming Out

We were called at last to dubious imaginings:

sacred bagels, virtual penises, fauna on a TV screen

we couldn’t eat though it made us hungry.

And it was the hunger which dealt the final blow

to contemplation. No more would we wait 

for the next moon or plan extravagant launches

over white rapids. It was all there immediately

and the tickle of the feather enough. And thus

the world was wimpy music, and the view cheap

to the cliffs and rain that made good merchant sense. 

But then what were the barred owls doing in the east

window? How were their hollers extractable and blunted?

They cawed like wild storms; they gnawed their way

inside us like the jaws of rats. Wasn’t this the haunting 

our inventions would help us to escape?

If we didn’t wish to die, certainly we’d prefer to return

to the present through as many doors as possible. Escape

would be final, the meaning would be useless.

They had taken to the mind as a residence.

Soon the mail would be sent first class to their doorstep,

and even the wind began carrying missives of wildflowers

through the cracks in our walls. We knew, though hunger

could never be satisfied, Saturn could now stand

for something and so could spring.