The Chimera

by Asha Clinton

Often he clothes her

in his uncle's bent back,

his mother's roar,

his father's chill blue eyes,

or tucks her in a foxhole,

rifle ready, cross hairs fixed

on his belly or balls,

safety off, finger tense.

Sometimes he constructs her

of pellucid silks, one soft shade

laid over another.

Beneath them he finds nothing.

Soon he will kill her

with his blindness,

then ride off to die himself

at heavens edge.