The dragon curls and dips above our heads
we scatter, scream and duck. It rears its head
toward the temple’s dome, its eyes, we see,
construed from twisted spokes, misaligned
hubs and wheels, and shattered frames,
its scaly flesh from tattered bicycle
inner tubes we once rode before we
damned it all as junk

How long had scraps, rubber, steel
waited in buried heaps before an animating
force in decaying wire, corroded metal,
scattered plastic bits, oil and grease,
effluence that leached into the earth
so deep they roused a force unknown
to human memory, a slithering reminder,
a living dread of once-repressed things

Monsters, like gods, are birthed by every age
and struggle to thrive while we mortals—
pale and prostrate—shield our eyes.
We have no means to stop an undead beast
whose swollen belly suggests imminent delivery
of some unknown form of wheeled technology,
a clockwork dragon’s parturition, a life
beyond human and ancient fire-breathing fears.
 
 
[Editor's Note: Publication of this poem was made possible by a donation from Emmett Smith during our annual Kickstarter.]