a piano falling out a window, mashing me into paste,
a mime battering me to death with an imaginary club,
a child�s balloon lifting me into a collision with Mary Poppins,
even dying on the toilet like Elvis, not from a heart attack,
a tornado dropping the gas station I�m in on Dorothy�s house,
my body crushed instead of a witch�s. My death will be in "News of the Weird"
next to robbers who leave wallets on the bank teller�s counter
and the strange Indonesian ceremony of the dancing chicken.
DRAGONS
After seeing The Hobbit I had one ambition in life: stealing an evil dragon
by jumping inside a cartoon, turning the flat images into steel armor, red scales,
and loathsome wings. We�d fly to my school, hunt down bullies, burn
them like flamethrowers destroyed infantry in hour long army men wars
we had during recess. My teachers would paint nervous As on my papers.
My parents would have to let me fly across the city, scaring pilots, prompting
UFO calls to secretive, close-mouthed officials. I�d use my powers for good,
stop thieves from looting banks, criminals from killing their victims. Its claws
would shred roofs; I�d pick out the best games and toys, hoard them in a child�s lair
carved within the town�s hills. I�d amuse myself for years, deep inside my childhood.
Donald Illich is a technical writer with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in Rockville, Maryland. He has had poetry published in The Iowa Review and Fourteen Hills and has poems forthcoming in New Zoo Poetry Review, Roanoke Review, and HazMat Review.
