john compton

tender community of fabled people

i stammer out of a growing perplexity.

i ask an awkward boy to show me how 

i’d lost myself,

who moves lightly over grass.

i continue the passage of identity:

something is asunder in its laughable zone.

we wander into a foliage 

folding into a thousand honeybees.

it’s a modifier of time 

to obtain memories by swindle.

he is a child’s head, the man whom i found, who leads me,

speaking about the lack of history & exaggeration:

the world is heavy with down—

vision & terror

for those who make earth black & white.

he is a match burnt-out. drunk once 

from personnel,

now sobering 

from them. i tell 

the child-head he is as queer as i. 

his eyes swim with curiosity. 

his face, two sets of flowers: 

those planted, & those wild.

i watch him grab a tree & shake it.

leaves rattle like tambourines. 

out farther from that music:

a religion of birds chirp like a strange sea.

halfway to somewhere, there was 

a green floral of ferns.

a casual display of tiny waviness. 

the child-head spins around

with an odd illustration. i’ve never seen 

a man swoon.

he drifts backwards, his arms like wings,

& the ferns took him into their leaves 

like a pool’s vile waters.

nothing is without error. i stand there

& hesitate to smile;

but he clamors his way back to his feet

& says, your anxiety might 

have suggested my death.

we tread into a pine forest. 

needles sow the ground.

i had needles once, sewing butterflies 

& beetles inside 

picture frames.

there is a dignity in everything. 

i licked their wounds with thread.

my fingers lumpish, their bodies

segmented & hollow. 

i was a giant out of place.

the sun breaks through, 

digging its way to our faces.

the child-head strolls with certainty 

through the twisted maze.

i lag along. this was an honest walk: 

i am a gnome out of place.

we make it to a community of buildings. 

at a glance, the windows are mirrors

& reflect everyone sent out to work.

the bus stop whittles me down. 

i turn my face to his.

i notice his eyes: their milky gaze.