Into this strange,
this shrunken world,
beheaded by gossip
and its sometime goal
of stalking the
fabulous taboo,
the potent anagram,
the zed.
No end to riddles
and liquid mythology.
Only a calendar
of empty days.
Their disappearance,
the grains of their skeletons.
Like a score, divided
between flesh and machine.
Groan, gasp, sigh, cry,
the silence of afterburn.
Thump of wood on wall,
or whip’s whisper,
canine harmonic to caress
each fine metallic sheet.
And thunder’s kettledrum?
Rain’s hush and shimmer?
Snow-blanched alumnus
of the night-long ride,
goal-keeper’s thighs
ensaddling each wayward
champion, clipping close
this tournament of
deep numbers, of blows
blunting into puddle.