A fresh poem on the dragon

A few lines from "Beknighted" by Jennifer Jerome, published this summer by Goblin Fruit:

I wait for you. Your bright foil
flames in the sun. Ancient scales
glitter in this dark cave; I hold
fire in my belly, long tail
coiled around my body to keep
the heat until you come....

Please visit the journal Goblin Fruit for the full poem - it is sweetly brief, and the last two lines are profound, which is something one says these days more often of speeches or of Academy Award-nominated films than of poems. Not since Beowulf have I felt so freshly introduced to a dragon. The slow pondering watchfulness (yet eagerness!) of the dragon on its hoard, as the fire builds in its body; the sun burning on the armor of the approaching knight.... Not that we haven't heard tales before from the dragon's perspective, but there is something vital and very true about this one. Sung from the wyrm to the knight, the poem is almost a love song, or almost a hunger song: perhaps those two are not always different. I love the first line: I wait for you.