Poem: The Epigraph (The Second Poem)

THE EPIGRAPH (Originally titled "THE SECOND POEM")

It's the rhyme of authority,
the 'almost' shine of it that convinces
the sudden flashes in the darkness,
the way its particular lightning chooses things
         to illuminate
the response from the crowd,
        the children especially
the way the mother sings to the eggs
the time it takes for them to hatch
        and consume their paralyzed hosts
the heat of its days, the effect on the houses
the pictures conjured by its smell
the colorful ethnography of the cave paintings
        still legible after thousands of years
the tuneless humming of its machinery
the way its technology was unthinkable a month ago
the primitive design, the sleekness
the luxury of its fur
the incriminating flourishes; stolen, blatantly stolen
the heaviness of its fruit and clumsy
        Jurassic flowers
the way it used spook my parents
the fact it's here at all
the ease with which it comes, like an ambulance
the way it always resembles itself
        despite repeated fractures
the sense it' under restraint,
        that it's dying
the wild notions that always lead back to it
the one thing it proves despite what it says
what it says

Poem originally titled "The Second Poem" © 1998 Brendan
Constantine revised as "The Epigraph," © 2011 Brendan
Constantine.