The Burning Giraffe

from "The Burning Giraffe" by Salvador Dali

We onlookers are silent, like so many are
when they look on anguish.

Her frame lilts, balance precariously
preserved by these crutches
and sticks and perforated thick-
nesses of wood, ripped from within
or pushed from without we do not know.

Her frame lilts, bony armature propped,
arms akimbo, face shrouded
in red,
hands coated in red,
wearing red gloves of vein and sinew,
forward hinge of hips
pricking the vacant blue
like daggers, like the shrieks
we cannot hear, though they must be here.

Those crude drawers stagger open,
blackness within gaping like sores,
and why is it these old drawers never close?
Steely skeleton with no closet,
thighs with slipping skin
have plenty to hide,
but the contents of her chest
have been stolen.
Her drawer torn open from beneath
her breast
(and nothing inside).

So is this why she cries out now like the dying,
for the carpenter or the burglar?
Or the one who stopped up her face
with gauze and left her here tipping—
a column buckled,
a tower conquered?

Those unseen corners
of cabinetry
test fastidious attention to secrecy,
challenge meticulous concealment,
time-trained.

The lady by her side prizes her streamer of red,
silent
(as so many are)
though anguish is near.
With root-bound brain, her leafy branches
reaching for that weak scratch of clouds.

Only I remain still, one eye
trained on the stilted, lilting woman,
one eye on the distant black hills.
Following some invisible road
to water,
I arrived here, wandered in like a martyr,
neck and back ablaze,
flesh curling with flames,
fur singed like kindling.

Above me sits a stream of smoke,
a frozen songbird sitting
on its branch of orange air,
perched on its tall branch of fire,
and there is nothing
(at all)
for me to do
but burn.