The Gauntlet

image borrowed from bing

The Gauntlet

Not long ago I wore
the gray mask of a wage slave,
and some early mornings alone
in my alley, fogging the chilled air
with my heated breath, watching it
drift gingerly past the single star visible
over my garage, often I could hear
the engine of a small plane hidden
in the low clouds, sputtering as
it searched for a landing strip;

before I habitually slipped red
through the pre-dawn indigo,
tingling with alacrity,
watching nervously in my mirrors
for those constabularial predators
who might,
who could,
who had sprung from concealment
snagging one of the stragglers of our group,
bullshit-bellicose, behaving
like silver-buckled sun-glassed
voracious lions
leaping onto our thin metal backs
with guns drawn,
and claws out;

but most of the time the herd was vast,
and others were pulled down
while I pushed on
eager for my servitude,
eager for the passage of years,
eager for the quiet hour at my desk
when the flop sweat
from my narrow escape
would transform itself
like a sensuous magi-bitch
into poetry.

Glenn Buttkus

April 2012

Posted over on Magpie Tales 114

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