CROCODILE II

I.

I was looking for my keys, and I couldn't find them.
So I knew, oh, I've been locked out of my life.
I can't get back into my car where my children are.
I can't let the dog out the window or get the groceries.
But the ice cream is melting as I watch it, and it's so far away from me.
I feel like I could stretch out my hands and touch the ice cream, but no.
There's some sort of force field preventing me from rescuing what was once part of myself
that can no longer be rescued.
Once I said, and then I didn't,
because once I said that,
once I said that,
once I said that,
really, that's the problem.
That it takes her a lot of effort to speak.
Once she knew this wasn't being heard properly,
she lost motivation.
Now she just wants to sit in the mud.
The voice of the crocodile,
I'll refer you again to the 12-year-old boy
who performed the dance beautifully.
But there is no funding for dances like that anymore.
You need at least $20,000 to do it properly.
You need the instrument and the boy
and some sort of venue
and the promotion that goes with it
and the training needed.
You could probably do it for less than that nowadays,
but
there is still the need for institutional support,
which no longer exists.
These institutions are gone
and the seats are not coming back.
So what?

II.

This is how it's always been.
But it's very sad
to watch something passing.
The fire burns down.
And when it burns completely down,
there is no more fire.
The fire lingers
in what we think of as fire.
But
that's only in
the mind
that
if you touched it now,
it would not
have that effect
that it has on
small children
who are taught
not to do that.
That
the fire
and the light,
we want to think that
the fire is eternal.
but
no such thing as
eternal
is recognized
in the system we have here.
I wanted to say
something about
the
fire and flame
as I term it
but
when it
touches -her-
then
this is why
she stays in water.
that the fire
when it touches -her-
is burning.
far apart from
the cooking of food
burning
superheated water
steam
and the hot springs
smell like eggs
she's an egg thief
crunching on them
like any of us would
if given the chance
an unattended nest
oh it's delicious
but
not that we don't do that
we do
but there is a distaste
and a sadness
loss of appetite
not in eggs exactly
but the blood spilt over
thousands of years
the blood in the yolk
the reminder of our cut hands.

III.

I'm going to Staten Island again.
I'm looking for my lost keys.
Yeah no I found them and then I lost them again.
They went away again and every time it's just like the last except worse.
I've lost my keys again and the pain is like every time I've lost my keys.
When you go to the zoo and see the seals they remind you of every seal you have ever seen.
That they are together in time.
The seals of the past and the present all merge into the moving figure underwater.
That's where she is.