... (xxiv).

poetry is the shearing away

of the bone

tonight--

the wind blowing,

quick and dry

sheared away the years

all the dead

days, thick and bony

and hard

and I saw the sunlight

on the path

and the shadows specking

through the leaves

I saw the light thick like

water, when the air

was too heavy

to breathe

and I, caged by the trunks

mourned, silently

in an empty room

and slumped against

the sides, of my skull

--but this exposure

is a crack in the living

cement of the ceiling

and the light, lively

unliving, trickles

across my face