#38 Homesickness

If these were
disparate objects
then their
juxtaposition might be
provocative

but here they share
a commonality, each is
equally out of place,
as in place as
the other.

If the lion
had the man’s wings

then this might
be allegory,
the lion a gryphon,
a mystical creature
as he who is now
Mister Commonplace
gazes out off the bridge
as people have done
ever since the
first tree

fell across
a stream. That
is the thing
about bridges,
wings or
no wings.

The lion
without a cage, the man
within one. Reality
is always
somewhere else. Only
the bridge exists,
hiding inside
the yellow fog
of melancholy.