A Talking Teapot

A talking teapot tells cook’s secrets
and gossips about the scullery maid’s indiscretions
while a curious clown with one green eye and one red
swivels his head to listen.

Meanwhile, at the bottom of the world,
a shark with racing stripes on his fin
flies a human as a kite
in the Antarctic where an iceberg glows with pure blue light.

Somewhere over the horizon,
a woman with a butterfly wing hat
stares unblinkingly as a whirlpool draws her in.

Riding a train across America,
the Black man harbors his otherness within
and sees a whitewashed wall of missed opportunity
at every stop.