After Swans Reflecting Elephants by Salvador Dali
Angels
with paper-weight wings,
gliding in the opacous blue
pond of withered tree limbs flaring
in a bed of murky soil and pebbles.
To the creator, angels resting behind distraught ruins
are like the meek elephants that migrate
on a corpse’s pointer finger peeking out of the sand—
single file—
waiting to jump out of this faulted gold ring
they tether in.
Angels
transform from white to gray,
from slim to large,
from translucent to wrinkled.
But what is failed to be described are the fallen,
the dried up and prune,
the squirming, twisted body that hides behind a stone.
The burning cave that swirls its way up to the mountaintop city
being overlooked by the moon.
The distinct image of what seems to be two making love
embedded on the rock wall some wondrous man stands next to.
And the canoe that I used to try and escape
swimming behind it all.
After Mendips, 1963 by Elizabeth Peyton
John’s eyes; narrow and glazed over with fresh dew
meet the body of his distant sunflower.
Baby’s tiny ant irises blossom at the sight of his momma’s bosom.
Grass’s nose points upward at the air’s burnt magnolia scent.
And the Trees let their lips bathe in the sun.
Each male,
yearning for their respective light
like a bee voyaging for the nectar residing inside of his rose’s middle:
John, cloaked in black like a weeping willow;
Baby exposed by his pale, naked leg beginning to rise like the clouds.
Grass and Trees begging for air to touch their hardened organs
and for the sun to give them a taste of her spiced rays,
only to be left heartless in this caved backyard,
forever desolate.
