Small, Mad Planets

by Lynne Thompson

We are all small, mad planets—

our veins swollen and sock-eye red,

memories short and less than useful;

they cannibalize our bloodstreams.

Old folks, knotted, gnarled, will tell you:

we are all small, mad planets, no less

twisted into a hump-backed tango,

no less implanted in this sad magenta soil.

Perhaps our batteries are dead or our

smoke alarms can’t recite their hard luck

and so we become small, mad planets

where rain in Djibouti doesn’t matter

any more than snow piling up in Duluth.

A child’s creaky yellow wagon is stilled

while a woodpecker’s rap is hysterical

because we’re all such small, mad planets.

* * * * *

"Small, Mad Planets" was first published in Beg No Pardon (Perugia Press, 2007).