I found a phrase to catch the steel,
some flint to scrape the lock
of tongue against the cold and rot.
It danced across my tongue three times;
only once forgot.
It seems there is crust inside the nib.
Stillness is at stake;
I sit, stale, with skin unchafed
numb to the untouch of freeze or fire
twiddling to drumbeats and
shearing atoms off of rounded marble,
a legacy hidden in trodden stairs,
to seep up to some future messenger.
In socks I slip off an eroded edge
and spike my heart rate,
reorient,
relieved to find it happened at the bottom.
For the briefest startled moment,
while my heartrate slows,
I slip beyond the shadows,
see the puppeteers,
identify my betrayers—
well-trained soldiers
marching to stalled-out inertia
behind laurel banners rotted in sun.
I had understood my ease to be comfort.
How arrogant, to believe I had all the time
and none of the world to beat.
…Funny, to set up the easy metaphor and promptly leave the ink to dry, shivering & stinging in the open air where it had flowed faithfully, unquestioningly, out from the safety of storage. Here—let’s try the mechanical:
I feel the tendons winching too early, as if the rubber bands never snapped, so I walk around rooms like the back of hands, and I chew my tongue, because my teeth have nowhere to go, and vicious barbs skitter across the enamel while honeyed mead coats my own head and turns rotten, for wont of outlet and fresh air.
