— a Persian carpet not in the Museu Gulbenkian

I'm afraid, a camel, luminous,
loping panicked away from the voice
asking: Your monster?
Me? Or that grinning demon
who leapt up on my hump,
who is twisting a malnourished snake
into a halter? Suddenly around me
the trees are a cage, pomegranates
pocked moons, faces zoological or bestial,
voices, that cacophony.