Warbonnet

My fingers traced a dying language
In the oleander sheen of your bare back:
Throat squeaks and stomach moans
And those sanguine groans from between
Our bones; Oh!  The earth quivers and
Our sounds shiver like the moment’s a mallet
And the world’s a gong; you’ve never been
Here, but welcome home.
 
Leave the light on. Circle the room,
A cougar pacing a parakeet’s cage;
My plumage as your warbonnet,
My thin bones your dog tags.
I’ll play the prey, I’ll wheedle or beg,
Four curled feet and cat’s cradle legs.
Oh! It’s better to learn than to know!
I smiled, dynamite strapped to a volcano.
 
Burrow through these cinder cones,
I built winter from summer’s wreckage,
I dug a caldera with molten bones,
These shrinking places in most cases
Keep us in a sleeper hold.
I give, you give, and refuse to own.
The mountain unwatched is the first to blow.