The Cyclops
By Joel Ephraims
The cyclops
Was a university
Made of two children
Sitting with their
Heads down
And with their arms
Around one another.
Below its single eye
Shone a theatre
For cleaved comets.
In this theatre
The children’s lights
Both sat and performed.
Like cats and flies
With prickly legs and prickly tongues
And other motors from the stars
They danced and soliloquyed
In the stage lights and
In the stage shadows.
“I have cleaned
My feet using soccer ships
As scours but still
Michel Foucault’s
Mysterious face eludes me.
I recline on the sand
Thursdays to watch the
Sea rocks of honeycomb shell
With my head propped up
On one arm to see
The herring red herring
That they are the bees
Of the honeycomb shells
As though their fleetingness
From the blue dark bear’s
Disproportionate paws
Uphold its structure.
It is only they
Who know where
The axes fell.”