THROWBACK THURSDAY
Image by Louise Dickinson-Brown
NASNAS
By Lewis Turco
It must hop, having but one leg,
but it does so swiftly.
They say its flesh is sweet.
It can give half a smile,
but its laugh is grotesque,
so Nasnas snirtles instead, to
keep its mouth as close as
may be; thus, it tries to
suppress its yawn as well.
If it winks with one eye,
it is blind a moment and may
be captured then. If one
listens at its breast, to
the half-beat of the heart's
single chamber, one hears,
besides, the lone lung's suspiring.
Its nostril flares in half-
hearted anger. It can
give but partial comfort.
God knows how it makes love.
From an unpublished manuscript, A Book of Beasts, poems by Lewis Turco, illustrations by Louise Dickinson-Brown; the poems may be found in Fearful Pleasures: The Complete Poems of Lewis Turco 1959-2007, Scottsdale, AZ: www.StarCloudPress.com, 2007. ISBN 978-1-932842-19-7, cloth; ISBN 978-1-932842-20-3, paper. Also available in a Kindle edition.
