HUMAN PSYCHE

HOOK

From afar a fish tilts its head up to

kiss the underbelly of a lonely hook

& waiting for the line to sink

they both get cold.

When my heart shivers I rub it

warmly between my hands &

it wears down like a soap bar

into wrinkles and compounds

in a hook-curved scar:

a line that might predict nothing for

some still promises income for the palm-

reader. If I fashion a piggybank mind

& collect a silvery sum of interest

why this debt of silence?

See, in so many ways I am

a farmer. I thought it would be

easier for my surplus of seeds

to survive a milder spring &

so I postponed the labor

of sowing and reaping

& instead walked with hole-filled pockets 

in the garden I loved so much. In my absence

my footprints became a buried body quickly forgotten

to a forest overrun with overgrown roots and barricades

of branches. When I returned, I carved my name

into a paperbark tree to mark the path &

it shook off that skin no longer

caring for my travels.

Every time I shake my head

a spoonful of dirt trickles

slowly out of my ears

onto my shoulders

and slips back

off the hook

wordlessly

to the

ear

th

.