After Midnight

" After Midnight "

by Suzán Jiván aka
Mom-Mom Suzán

for Kenny, Jimmy & Eric

Man minds his sleeping grandchild
after midnight
while dreaming of pack ice
shrinking
like retreating white-winged endangered species
forced to breed in captivity
in quarantine
hitchhiking on nursery trees
being stored in igloos
made of concrete
covered
by stone-eating microbes
blighted
by fungi and lichens
along land-locked highways
becoming less and less reliable
at different times with heavy and light
rains falling at varying places
Fractured into factions of attack
unmarked and unmapped
in a monotony of gravel
parsed by tangents on a sliding scale
nudged here and there
without looking back at sniffing animals
with artifice as armor while stabbing
fingers skyward as a classically
bona fide striving to exercise
with a passive statuette
in prickly defense of morbidity
with pivotal trophies
proudly pointing out the rapture
of song and dance
with a contrarian maverick
from the prevailing underclass
of gross misunderstandings
praised as an idyllic cast...