The Mantis

I find him on the floor
Of a dank and smoky
Main street bar
Both of us
Out of place
In this toxic landscape
Wondering
How we got here

Him for the first time
Me for the last

We study each other
With tilted heads
Both of us monsters
In our own right
But unlike my segmented friend
I understand this place
Having once trapped myself
In a similar mine
And know full well
Of the slow
Punishing death
Inside these walls

I sense his desperation
The anxiety and fear
No different
Than the other animals
Inside this glass cage
But because
He didn’t ask to be here
And I am now simply
A tourist of these holes
I gather the praying creature
In two hands
Take it outside
And release it
In a cement planter
Full of flowers
And a fighting chance

All that any of us
Can ask for