HOLLOMAN AFB
After the radiant
ash settled into anonymous sand a
monkey, a yellow "astrochimp,"
was launched toward his fiery Self, cowering in cockpit with
a hollow reed for air, with banana-flavored
rewards for antics of humanized terror.
Naked unadorned metallic taste
on tongue in a mouth of unbrushed teeth, hairy panoply masked
with the ardent intent of intelligent mutations follow an unlovely scent to a
sorcerer's preparations spread over radar-absorbent skin suited
to stealthy lustrations?
Bones of body counts fly
again, engineered to specifications of another
King of Birds, suspended between poles of secularized power;
or leaping from towers of blinding ambition,
what knowledge gripped in the beak condenses from beaker to
violent decision?
Right arm raised, finger extended, uniformed effigy suns himself
exposing the physics of Old World mind spinning on its axis
like a fading star.
