Robert Fernandez

ZODIAC

O chicken, 
how can
we save you
when your head’s
cut off
and all you dream
is spider?
O level-7
clippers
at the spider’s
beard—
O bearded
spider, 
how can I
offer you
fire when
all you dream
is the web’s
center of hair-
gel sheen
jiggling
blocky images?
Not my job, 
but, but
it’s sad to see
a chicken that
could be squashed
like a star
under a resolute
cleaver is
instead
so dry.
O spider, 
step into
the light,
become
a pearl.
Some pearls
are waiting
for you
with open hands
and red dresses, 
soft drops
of night
in their centers.

ROBERT FERNANDEZ is the author, most recently, of Scarecrow (Wesleyan), and is co-translator of Azure, poems by Stéphane Mallarmé.

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