I’m falling apart

riding on the back of a giraffe.
its bones are hard
grating against mine,
chipping at my hips and knees.
There is the absolute black
of the wild,
obscuring the edges
of all the leaves and the trees.

I want to go back
to the river,
the current of the living,
but the limbs of this animal
are set on this course
carrying me off
into the contours of my mind.

His ears are up
with the sky and the leaves
and he can’t hear me asking
for him to bend or halt
and let me go.

The brown smudges
on his back are leaving cracks
in the white of his fur
and I know he too
is falling apart.

3/22/2010
Tatiana Robinson
from Advanced Poetry Workshop Spring 2010