koalas
       

so much sleep in only one tree,
so many gray globes
of fur in all the branches, a bohemia
of sluggishness which itself in the treetops holds and holds

and holds with a couple of crampons
as claws. nor was it ever credited, first to take
the journey above the whistling fans
of rainforest canopy, ruffled stoics,

shoddy buddhas, tougher than the poison
in the leaves, with their cotton-woolears
against enticements, immune
in some cranny of the world: no waterloo

for them, no walk to canossa.
take note of them, memorize them
while there is time—this face in repose,
this expression of a cyclist

very close to stage win, disconnected
from the ground, but within our reach
in jaded gray, before each of them yawns, stretches,
drops off into a dream of eucalyptus.

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Copyright © 2015 Jan Wagner (tr. David Keplinger) All rights reserved
from Copper Nickel
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission