[Although the cogs of my internal clockwork]
By Louis Daniel Brodsky

Although the cogs of my internal clockwork

Complete their toothy cycle

One more night and day, their fated cycle,

I feel their frictioned heat being released,

Hear the subdued screeching of surfaces

Pressing too lightly against surfaces,

Realize, somehow,

Like ducks knowing when to fly south,

That time is not just fleeing

But running out of its shoes, with Mercurial feet,

Beating entropy at its own race.

More to the point, it's been three months

Since I've awakened in a body,

In a bed my senses have recognized

And been able to locate, respectively,

For the condition of vagrancy and dereliction

That's recently overtaken me, in middle age.

How strange to take off all one's clothes,

Remove shoes, wrist watch, St. Christopher medallion,

Then, edging to the bathroom,

To do constitutional rituals,

See hooves, horns, hirsute skin

Reflecting, from mirrors flanking the basin,

Features associated with Satanic creatures

From traditional morality literature and oral history,

A bestial visage belonging to me —

Half man, half animal,

Standing in antic deviltry

As if waiting for commands, from my center,

To energize me, unfreeze me,

Let it send me to the Land of Hissing Dreams,

Where, doing endless penance, I might repent

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