Engraved Mark

Character. There’s a word.
Can be a compliment.
That one has character.

Left-handed compliment.
You’re such a character.
Can play marionette—

The author’s characters.
Adjective. Character
Study. And then, somehow,

It can be sign itself,
The transcribed face of words.
Poem in four characters.

Steep cliffs in retirement.
Combine them. Character
Study of snowy cliffs,

Sages in retirement,
Stoical and solemn
But kind. Such characters.

Entre nous

Every invisible line in the mind
Forms its own arbitrary DMZ,
Its own miniaturized shadowland
Where some creatures unknown to either side
Manage to survive. Some beasts tried to cross
But got stuck. They’ve found ways to stay alive,
But they never will get out. Other things
Are born natives of the dividing line.
If the line lasts, some will have evolved there.
Overhead, crossers and transgressors fly.
On either side, the world is on that side,
But don’t you find it more fascinating
Than crossing or maintaining boundaries,
To scrutinize inhabitants inside?

The Potent Remains

Raider ants don’t have queens,
But they do have mutants

Expressing super genes
As nonfunctioning wings

And queenish behavior
Like staying in the nest

And waiting to be fed
Rather than go raiding.

It was assumed these were
Parasites, another

Species masquerading
To exploit the raiders,

But no, they’re just mutants
Unmasking the latent

Genetic instructions
For queens that raider ants

Probably did have once.
Life is conservative

As an auto junkyard
That way. The discarded—

Vestigial tails, eyes in caves,
Cannibal behaviors—

Leave heaps of rusted parts
That sometimes get re-used.

Remember raider ants
When undead politics

Like parasitic queens
Or absolute god kings

Spring back to zombie life.
The potential remains.