The Observer - Brazos

Completely protected on all sides by volcanoes

A woman, darkhaired, in stained jeans

Sleeps in central Africa

In her dreams, her notebooks, still

Private as maiden diaries

The mountain gorillas move through their life term;

Their gentleness survives

Observation.

Six bands of them

Inhabit, with her, the wooded highland

When I lay me down to sleep

Unsheltered by an natural guardians

From the panicky life-cycle of my tribe

I wake in the old cellblock

Observing the daily executions

Rehearsing the laws

I cannot subscribe to

Envying the pale gorilla-scented dawn

She wakes into, the stream where she washes her hair

The camera-flash of her quiet

Eye