There is
A metal giraffe.
It is my friend.
It lives behind a chain link fence in it’s natural habitat
A metal jungle
Inhabited only by the emptied out shell of a car
3 tires
Seventeen cans
A rusty pipe
And a tangle of weeds.
The metal giraffe feeds
On two things:
Mustard Seed
And
The laughs of the children who have now grown up
And walk
Tight lipped, briefcases in hand.
Yes,
The metal giraffa used to have many friends
Though now I am the only one
Left.
We sit together,
He and I and watch the passerbys
To whom we are invisible
In the overgrown canopies
“Remember”
I ask the Giraffe
“When you would dance for us and the light of the sun bounced off your glossy hide
Creating a sight more beautiful than the Fourth of July?”
The
Metal Giraffe nods and smiles
But
The look in his eyes is far away in the land of
Metal forests that
Only he can see.
And then we are dancing-
The giraffe and I
He completes perfect
Arabesques and pirouettes
Only
This time
Is different.
His metal limbs creak and whine
And the light is absorbed
Into his rusty, mossy yellow hide
His face is different too
Somehow
And I watch as the Metal Giraffe sinks
To the ground
And rests his head on
The lichen covered earth
Beside me.
“That was a wonderful last dance.”
I now sit alone
In the Metal Jungle.