When all you know is fight or flight, red flags
& butterflies all feel the same —
Cindy Cherie
He squats undercover
beneath unlit lintels, mantles, dust mites
spores. Submarine cave’s grizzly bear is frozen
stupefied at base camp. Swamped under avalanches
of snow he clambers sleepless with bone-flotsam
among crannogs of tissues. Pretends eye-bright not red-eye
because legless feet have no crampons. He limpet-fumbles
on rugs, looks for white noise & wishbones to snap
If only he could bench-press dimples, wriggle free from
his pupa-sack like pith-purse of a pomelo as his seesaw
eddies to minutes, days free of flash backs. Pitfalls
no longer armadillo-armour as his tongue unknots
stiff-upper-lip-shoulders-back-quick-march
He hangs
scar tissue
military
medals
bandolier
& empty
bullets on
hipster-branches
of a Cloutie Tree
at the Healing
Well. Until next time he hears a staccato rat-a-tat-tat
in tumbledown walls, wrestling those khaki anacondas.
