I take the giraffe as a symbol, so when I saw
her tattoo it spoke to me. Maybe it was Rudyard
(who called him that?) Kipling turned me on
to animal characters, or was I a shaman in
another life? She was tall too, quietly noble,
eyes that have seen the ceaseless fractious
soap-opera of competitive carnivores.
The tube squealed to a jolting stop, doors smiled
on some nameless overground halt you wait
inexplicably at in blinking daylight,
regurgitated a spatter of occupants, leaving
the two of us facing across the savannah.
A pendulum is really a bipolar plumb-line,
gripped by a manic attack of perpetual
overshoot. Rudyard kept that observation
to himself. I can't stop my mouth spilling
the choppy seas of my brain – or I open it
to find a solid sheet of Arctic ice.
She looked up, into my eyes, took a breath:
"Goldfinches".
Verses of Five 