VILLAESPESA, Francisco
Dream of the Caiman
Enormous log dragged by the wave—
caiman beached on the river shore:
backbone a broken cordillera,
formidable tail, jaws an abyss.
The sun wraps him in a dazzling aureole—
a seeming mail-coat and heraldry,
a metal monster who shimmers
and whose shimmering lays a sheen.
Unmoving as a sacred idol
girt in a mesh of compact steel,
he lies against the still, dark water
like an enchanted prince
who lives an eternal prisoner
of the river’s palace of glass.