WhereBear

a sharp stick might do it,
          	
          	pass the time with a twirl until I recognize myself
          	traversing the driveway.
          	marked with pond-scum and life’s rosebud hickies,
          	limb transposed upon limb, all pitted crags without bottom or end
          	(there is no grassy knoll / nor hill in that cliff-face)
          	
          	a sharp stick might cut the tension like a butterknife,
          	as dull as it is serrated, a grindstone upon the stream / the lake / the tributary
          	frozen over, plunged and held-breath as a word
          	(just one, or more and more again)
          	
          	it’s fucking hedonistic
          	what that vessel has caught in two arms, or four,
          	more accurately depraved, or eldritch 
          	or homely and home again,
          	
          	but look it in the eyes as a man —
          	
          	as a simple creature, as a caricature of a cast shadow in need,
          	in need of sensation, of a tossed coin, of a scrap torn from the cloak yet imagined
          	
          	thank the shell and your god,
          	as they are but two facets of the same sharp stick