Pivotal Trophies

" Pivotal Trophies "

by Suzán Jiván

I

Man
minds
his
sleeping
grand
child

II

After
midnight
while dreaming
of pack ice shrinking

III

Like retreating
white-winged
engangered
species

III

Forced to breed
in captivity
in quarantine
hitchhiking
on nursery trees

IV

Stored in igloos
made of concrete
covered by stone-eating
microbes blighted
by fungi and lichens
along landlocked highways

V

Less
and
less
reliable
at different times

VI

Heavy and light rains
falling
at varying places

VII

Fractured into factions
of attack
unmarked and unmapped

VIII

In a monotony of gravel
parsed by tangents
on a sliding scale

IX

Nudged here and there
without looking back
at sniffing animals

X

Wearing artifice
as armor
while stabbing fingers
skyward
as classically bona fide

XI

Striving like a classically
bona fide rapt exercise
with a passive statuette

XII

In prickly defense
of morbidity
with pivotal trophies
proudly
pointing out the rapture

XIII

After a long song and dance
with a contarian maverick
from the prevailing underclass
of gross misunderstandings
praised in an idyllic cast...