this then is poetry,
the skin of our teeth
clinging to words
stealing the breath
of all that remains

bones drying in the sun
splintered by stories of our names

what do we crack open with the
dark shade long shadows make, hiding
from what we profess like sardines compact
in tin cans, the last food in our knapsack
and us with no opening lines,

can the spirit hide from itself
when stones gather around the heart
circling on a British isle, obelisks to the
sun of another poet--cursing stars
with the wounded mouth?