White Lions in the Afternoon

White Lions in the Afternoon
                                                     
    - Patrick Lane

The mushroom if left long enough will leave

its mark, a blue flower sudden as night

upon white paper. The beautiful endures.

There are white lions in the afternoon

just as there are scars that roll across the wrists

of small awkward children. They are the same

as the bright burnt hole in an eye

that has looked too long at the sun.

Something at the end of the mind

cries out. That is when the pain comes

motiveless, with a pure efficiency.

We spend the end of our lives

calling down upon ourselves the images:

the fragile mushroom lifting pale flesh

out of the memory of rain, the scar

strung like a bangle upon a delicate wrist,

a hole in the eye. They are why we sleep

and why upon waking, bewildered by the day,

the white lions rise with us in the sun

and move with great patience toward the mind.