Who's that leopard in ecstasy
(and Ampersand Cornelius Gray)
who learned to trot briskly under lamp poles
and rescue a ***** worn mug from the clay
                      that which bore them.

She signaled with a passing glance that the entrenchment should pass,
giggling eyes that sparkled from pearls and concrete teeth.
I pivoted on the unmoving coordinates, the universe revolved.
From within her a spirit rose up and clasped my face in its hands,
and I, red with terror, dove head first towards the sands.

He howls out, burdened.
He is unaware of my condition, beneath the waters;
here I lie in wait,
too, in weight.
Here I lie
beneath the crushing force of the universe.
On the bottom of the sea, the top of the Earth,
a smokestack, of golden flames, fills my heart,
rumbling, confident and unafraid.

The Leopard sits, its paws splayed out on a bed of ferns.
Upon its raised position, it lies, basked in ethereal warm light.
The fierce awe of strength and knives of metal,
racing above ground on knees of silent, yellowed corduroy.

Who waits with the Leopard, alone and cold?

Who knows the beast the captures my wonder?

Here I lie, in servitude, enslaved in my claw cave.
My paws are pale, in this oddly worn nave.