| 1 "Don't let me catch you out on the frozen, five-lane highway, skipping over dotted lines, singing rhymes, coming to a curious halt where the cold dunes eat the asphalt. Don't ever let me see you teetertotter on the gutless automobiles. Don't roll tires down the craters. Stay away from open fields, even if they sparkle--seen one bullet casing, you've seen them all. You're getting tall. You scraped your knee. You're filthy, and you squint right through your hair. It makes me smile. Run along but don't you dare leave my sight, and don't be loud. Always watch the permacloud for rain. Come back soon. Remember, we're the only ruins of concrete with hanging laundry. It will wave you home to dinner--wave at you through the haze." 2 "Very well: I'll tell you, if that will make you sleep. You'd think it was a moving hill. Its beak can drill into cellars. Slugs are lodged in its girth. Camoflauged in earth-tone and four hundred years of dirt. Yes, it's older than you. Miles of barbwire snagged beneath its skirt. Barnacles and moss, monkeys on its back, treads to cross the mud. Laser turrets glowing red--eyes behind its head. The batteries last a decade, then it hibernates. Shrugs until it's just an armored ball of thorns. Sleeps and is reborn. Its restless; it listens for restless little kids, rolling with a sound like a purr in a growl. Maybe it stayed north, got caught in the drifts, froze all its gears. Maybe it was wedged inside a valley for a year. Or maybe it's in China now, nuzzling the bricks for hints, sniffing the ocean floor for footprints. I bet it wonders where the party went. And everyone's forgotten who sent it. As long as it's off their continent, honestly--no one really cares at all. And that's all. But you've stopped hearing. You've drifted to your secret place, believing, still, that I keep the world safe. Dreams of hopscotch on the geriatric blacktop and a cartoon in your head of a snapping turtle basking on the ground. Sleep sound. Sleep sound." (No foes, no match. That's life after the smash) |