Peter Leight

Jungle Story

Every morning we put on our sunsuits and swim in the sun, the light is green, the air is clean, as if it never spoils, the leopards pick their spots, nobody tells them not to, for every lamb there’s a lion thumbing through the organs, while the undergrowth slides under the overgrowth, the law is the law, it’s not something you obey. Everybody’s eating out, the giraffes stick out their necks, the monkeys climb and cling, cling and swing, nobody tells them not to, it’s better to be afraid in case you need to be. The light is green, or tinted green, as if it’s still ripening, the air is clean, the lambs are lying down while the lions lose their waistlines: when you stay where you are they find you, when you move around you find them. End of story.

In the Kingdom of Walls

we keep our eyes on the walls not even taking our eyes off the walls when we’re passing the walls as if we’re giving something up not looking for a way around the walls at the end of every wall there’s a wall if you turn away from a wall you turn toward a wall as if you’re caught or you don’t even care about being caught when somebody has a wall we say the wall looks good on you we often lean against a wall as if we’re waiting for the wall to lean back or open up if it’s indoors honestly we don’t care about the doors passed from wall to wall like a carpet sometimes I think we don’t even have a life of our own if they’re different in different places it doesn’t make any difference when we’re inside we do things inside that nobody needs to know about

Peter Leight has previously published poems in Paris Review, AGNI, Beloit Poetry Review, Raritan, Matter, and other magazines.