Number Jungle

 

5 has keys. 5 jangles.

Closes cabinets with hips.

 

9 slithers up the glass windows,

copulates on the roof.

 

2 lives

in the succulent old birch tree,

sipping insipid syrup leaking as though from a sieve.

Trees hear each other cry.

 

 

Fighting with a chipmunk for nuts is 4.

4 with big teeth and base instinct

who made the terrain with his little claw year by year.

 

 

3 is a sucker for Romance languages,

estuaries that burn the thirsty livid.

 

 

See the gators muscle through the delta

unaware he watches hungry.

 

7 churns in the puddles

bites mosquitoes til they welt

 

8 carves slices of watermelon beyond the fence

 

spitting seeds

into

a

hole

in

the

ground,

listening to them nest and

fight,

content without toys

 

1 sings high in the breeze,

perched on a cell tower.

Unattainable music,

sweet sweat dripping from him

a rain of sugar.