“Pretend You Were Here”
To prove you exist
olives rain down
allowing berries to encircle your belly
and dances commend
your shadow above our trees to fall
through crowns of prickers
a city hot and terrible
in this light
brought together by the most evil work
our hands alive with wires in a foundry
an exploded view of the map
leads us to pick cherries
from the hands of birds
and street signs
with their limericks torn off
to peel back the sardine can
and chase the cat
inside the canary,
to bedevil the juke joints
with our glasses raised
as werewolves hide their feet
to be spied through sunglasses
whose soiled mind is too heavy for the bleachers, a beastly competition
cars scratching fleas
the wolves can see nor catch us
and though we run faster than the trees
they nip with wolf prints fast fogged suffocating under plastic
slats of a boat
between you and the view
I carve a stone pony
your poetry
nicholauspatnaude 