Watch Your Head

Is that thunder, or just the sound
of a falling satellite burned to dust
in midair? Or some forgotten piece of junk
jettisoned from Mir—a radiator core
or insulating panel. Watch your head.

Is that joy, that tigress rearing up
claws out, inside your heart?
She'll make you holler, leave you
a sentimental idiot mooning over daffodils
and drooling in the dust. Watch your head.

We fall like skittles in trajectories
constrained by numeric descriptions,
prisoners of calculus. She prowls
alongside our cages, tail lashing her flanks
raising puffs of burning dust. Watch your head.

The metamorphosis begins. You see stripes
like flames on the backs of your hands.
Around you the scrolling numbers change
to dawn clouds racing before the sun.
Watch your head burning
burning to dust.

joy; satellite; holler; jettison; skittle; tigress; metamorphosis; dust; thunder; forgotten; daffodil; numeric; cure; drool

--words courtesy of Read Write Poem
Collection available! Knocking from Inside