Inside Out
By Chelle Miko

He’s become a wide-eyed monotone
That watches them
Watch him
Pace inside the bars they built.
Peeping children chew cotton
And block his caged vision,
Carpeting his boredom wall to—he waits
For nothing or an appetite
While bats bump into each other
Right side up and blind
Until someone turns on the moon.
 

Sometimes he forgets or remembers
And walks his thoughts without a leash,
Stretches and bends them, blinks and sends
Them into a wild run
As if no one were watching him
Rock against pretend
As if there were room enough
To make a breeze
Track the bone and rake the fur
All the way from the nape of his neck
To the dust
Of someone else's wake.

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