LARRY LEVIS

The Leopard’s Mouth Is Dry And Cold Inside

Now I am drying my body, but carefully, as if it doesn’t really belong to me, and won’t last. And now that I see it, alone like this in the mirror, I think I’m right; it won’t last. After all, does a stray dog feel permanent when you touch it? Does something as singular as this ant on my sill? Or if I admit that stray dogs and ants might have a certain anonymous permanence, why doesn’t my white, bruised skin? It doesn’t look as durable as my wife’s reading glasses. It doesn’t even look as if it will outlast some clouds I once saw. They were cramped into the sky of a child’s painting, and looked as if the child forgot to include them, and then suddenly remembered and put in too many of them, as if to make sure of something.