Gazelle

        Gazelle
I am the bustling blue sky
Under where she sought shelter
From her heartless hunter.
Under where she softly cried
Upon abruptly awakening
From her soured green dreams.
Where she looked as she skipped
Across the waterless wastelands
On her burned and broken feet.
Gave her rain in her dry thirst
And shrouded her with darkness
When she wanted to hide in grasslands.
Brought the sunlight to her hazy eyes
And thousands of stars to accompany
Her during her long and lonely nights.
Embraced her with mist when vultures
Circled overhead to eat her weakening
Body as she rambled through the desert.
Gathered her fading tears and sprinkled
Them in her face when she began to forget
The vicious nights under his raging rifle.
Shattered her thickening skin with hail
When she wanted to recoil into herself
And lie frozen in the indifferent tundra ice.
Entertained her with my lightning flashes
And my passing clouds when she needed things
To hold on to in the vacuum of her long-lost dreams.
Shared with her the secrets of where my winds blew
And the mysteries of how my colorful birds could fly
And the terrible past of the constantly changing moon.

Then, I watched her hunter sneak up on her with a rope
And, putting it around her neck, led her through the jungle
Back to his shady, crippled cabin, away from my longing gaze.
And when she finally came out, a month later under the same moon,
He whipped her to work, pulling crates of heavy, green lemons behind her
As she dug her hind legs into the ground to muster enough strength to go on.
With a laugh he shoved a hard rifle into her back when she lay down, weary
From pulling his big carriage and luring other animals into his metal traps,
But she remained expressionless, licking the flailing cuts on her stained belly.
And one cold night, under the birds that flew south, I showed her the warm sun
In the horizon, and with my lips on her broken cheek asked her to come back to me,
But she mumbled that I was just a dream, and besides…she had gotten used to him.