Big Blue Pet

He guards his fantasies as if they were a big blue pet –

an undiscovered species only slowly opening its secrecies

to him – an azure animal he hides, to which he feeds

his private nights, keeps out of sight not out of shame or fear

but in the prayer that, unmolested and protected, what proceeds

between them might exceed the limits of what everybody else

appears to think is good enough. He wants the greater size,

the stranger stuff – an essence of which no one he knew, knew –

a prize to which he hadn’t gotten yet, but could. The thing

his big blue pet might let him know, and one day would.

.