I found out the other day
that Shrieking Eucalyptus leaves
can scream in pain,
sounding like scraping steel or porpoises.
I imagine a shadow-eyed nightbear
clinging to the tree’s arcing ribs
and lamprey-******* on a branch,
only to start at the screech
and ***** for a grip in the grease
and plummet Galileo-like
and smash on the ground:
a mass.
Anyone watching would think, with a shudder,
that screaming’s no reason to drop.

Were I to take the specked leather grips of the rust bellows,
I’d hiss venom from its jet nozzle
to melt the heart of every moon-razed mountainside,
and the air
would shiver and hum with the heat.

The wicker bird that used to perch
outside my mother’s cell
would creak its claws and upwards lurch
and wing a way to hell,
and trace absurd geometries
and soar ungodly high,
exceed its heart’s thermometries,
ignite, and burn, and die.
When morning came, the soothing dew
would **** its flame-stained lines
and build the wicker bird anew
to try another time.