Tell them they are doomed.

Doomed to be alone.

Forever a wanderer, lost in stars

Trapped in a heap of fuzzy flesh.

 

Their sad eyes will fall to the dirt, longingly.

Waiting to hear news from messengers

Who guard the hot gates.

The news is not good.

 

A small moment of repose

A twitch of a black ear.

A wet nose.

Empty wishes that fall from stars.

They are forever outside the gates.

 

Now the hell-fires are felt upon their skin

And the molten stones

And flicking flames explode and

Gouge an eye.

 

The gates open, and the pandas are sad.

They must enter, now.

And they are sad to see all of god’s animals

Except their kin

On the opposite sides of the gates.

 

They do not know who is in hell

Or who is in the world.

But the stars above

Know their sin.

Confronting them.

 

Inside the gates

Someone cheers

It is me.

 

Their little tails catch fire

Their pink tongues retract

And someplace behind those dark little eyes

And inside their dollar-store brains

They ponder their fuzzy navels.

 

Frightened.

 

They hide behind the only bush they savor:

Never knowing their true nature.

No ever panda does.

 

All of these poems and more can be found HERE on Amazon in the anthology “A Cartographer”.