ISSUE: Winter 2007
Imagine your point of entry here. Sheer cliffs
of broken rock, razor trees, water
barely gentled at this shore where a man,
pikestaff-lean and shaped
in the chest like the shield
he grips—supple as the muscles
on a swimmer’s back—prepares to yield.
Or not, this one who marks your place, waits for
and watches your arrival: all witness,
all seeming patience to a discovery
he’ll have to struggle to accept; be broken,
relentlessly, into.
It’s a defeat
he strangely longs for,as his posture’s stoic solitude suggests.
See his hand raise in tentative
greeting. See yourself
methodically rowing towards the shore.
The sun spreads its rust pool at the far horizon
as he looks you up and over, eyes squinched tight
against the pressure of its glare.
Imagine the point of your entry here. But never fear:
there’s only one of him.
