Katherine Holmes

Prince Lear

Luncheon served under the pergola
door in the lion-sun. Eye-openers,
jewel-ruled intrigues along
the arcade of Sweet William,
rose mallow, pearly everlasting.
Bewilderment, an allegiance-
changing mother, her sorceried
claw foisting food dowsed in
chickenfat. Sorrow, an orange sister
done in during a sudden siege
with car armor.

                   Splendid garden
slinking away too, the bewitched
leaves, the grassy mattresses,
the courtyard warmths. Last nestle,
his injured-looking sibling
with the fur-blacked eye
taken captive into a house.
The world howling. A hateful
ubiquitous hound on the loose.
Twig-haired, stone-boned, its grisly
tail lashing a daily lunacy.
The sky spitting down a foamy
distemper of sleet.

     
                   What is wild,
it made one wonder. The juvenile
animal maddened in November,
merely. Forsaken, crazed, wary,
cast off into the callous
old creation. Feline Lear,
ring-tailed and coroneted,
got "wise enough to keep warm."
Squares of gold ungrowing clover.
The human hand foliating light.
Pools and claybeds of fishmeal.
A cloistered cat purring, "Sex squalls
are no more." Much to be questioned.