Lily of the Valley
Jim Davis

Lantern in the window casting light upon the lily.
The white robe draped over the slow gray mule.
It’s been a long day, he said, eating potato salad
over the sink. A small blue planter birthed sea
horse shaped sprigs of coriander & thyme.
Bones in the dust of human music.
No new eyes upon the fertile gorge.
Frankenstein’s monster works like a gift
& smells like her breath: either milk or sour
mindlessness. Silk pajamas now a thing
of the past & rules of the future world appear
mostly the same. God’s gone recognizable
stages of bald & wears thick leopard glasses
when he reads. Millet for the paraclete in a cage.

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