Chameleons

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You don’t have to camouflage, to darken

your hues against a background. But I get it: splendor

eludes. Better to be part of the scenery

when radiance isn’t an option. Who can see you

against the mahogany cabinet, on the red Berber

carpet? So when I say rage,

you say disrepair, and we are roughly

indistinguishable. We may remain that way

until someone else hollers tolerance

and you quiver or I quake and from the air,

a talon spikes a neck. I crave it,

tendon severed. That’s the ugliness to which

I ply my heart. You said the sun was too far,

the stag too fast, so you perched yourself here,

where you could hear every wild sound and see

the way each hyena tore at an open belly. Your fingers

turn dull chrome. You say you’ll change

back one day, but look: a forest littered with I’ll change.