The Giraffe in the Room

You wake up as akimbo limbs: uncertain if you can: even stand in such a room: as yours: and something else: is in your spirit: wanton and ravenous: but caged: you are surrounded: by drawings of flowers and leafs of another century: and the portraits of people: long dead: family you never knew: like desire and guilt: though none will feed you or hold you: and what lives outside your windows: are a constant fascination: how can anyone be like that: knowing: they too see you peeking through: and think much the same: you’ve got to clean house: there’s barely enough room: for you to move from window: to window: in this morning light: which bends in golden: and makes you feel: like your skin: is patterned wallpaper: fading a little more each hour: like these old ghosts: unable to lift: from their pages
 
 
 

J. P. Dancing Bear is editor for the American Poetry Journal and Dream Horse Press. Bear also hosts the weekly hour-long poetry show, Out of Our Minds, on public station, KKUP and available as podcasts. He is the author of thirteen collections of poetry, most recently, Love is a Burning Building (FutureCycle Press, 2014), and his fourteenth, Cephalopodic will be published in 2015 by Glass Lyre Press. His work has appeared or will shortly in American Literary Review, Crazyhorse, the Cimmaron Review and elsewhere.