THE DAINTY MONSTERS
Michael
Ondaatje
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The Sows
Only few survive the day — pink.
The dust’s too luscious and cool
to even compete with beauty.
Lunch clangs
and scuffs to a halt.
They gyrate a hole,
overcome gargantuan sighs
and close albino eyes to sleep
— an eyelid trembling in the air.
And there are ways of sleeping too:
dust collects on your wet snout
if you face wind,
and there’s the sun
streaming through barbed wire
to worry about.
But it’s cool in the dust
and flies don’t like your pine hard hair.
So chinless duchesses
sniff out the day,
guaging their loves with a seasoned eye.
On spread thighs, and immobile,
they categorize the flux around them,
watching the rain melting the dust,
or the sun
fingersnapping out the dying summer.
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