Sonnet for Shenron, Eternal Dragon of Earth

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What I wouldn’t give to want to give. To sleep

my ropes of wishbody in the planet’s deep

until someone collects what calls me, through

mantle & impossible hot. To untangle & rise

for another’s eagerness. To feel fed by obliging.

Shenron, our many petty longings (youth, re-vigor,

lives scrubbed out like streaks of grease) must dapple

your tongue like sap-thick grapes — but. What of

those asks too big for even a dragon’s grant? Begged-at

by a boy cradling his father’s bug-rotten heart, you’d say

no. Because some griefs must bud. This I recognize.

Being so sure you can hustle fate down a different creek —

until you can’t. It is so human, Shenron, to be the age of a planet

& not admit we are so helpless to small, sick things.