ikeness
for his kith and kin
by dumping calloused cushions,
too long cousins
of the diaper rash effect
bunions, corns,
carbuncles
eager to roam
the padlocked sockets
between distant fibula
and tibia.

Poor femur, of course, was
outraged against carpals
and the growing phalanx
arrangement of
distant phalanges.
Even the metatarsals
were girdled in
righteous indignation
committed against their person
by a maverick masquerading
in pelvic insubordination.

Altogether the body contains 206 bones.
It is rumoured none contain
a giant of his capacity, notoriety, or effect.
48, 49

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TO SIT ARRAYED

To sit arrayed
and task consumed
by the edge of a window,
the world as fire
stepping free of winter's stain,
jutting fingers of light
to a basement ledge
then allowing their
foggy movement to
displace dust's circle
as it has come
to be known
over the last
five months,
is to come as
near as possible
to the brink
of private
sanity.
50

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SILVER COINS

Seen the whores in doorsteps,
slack, crouched as packing crates
behind their quiet wardrobe lamps,
inset like a skeleton's crown
there to bend our will,
provide passageways to power and suggestion;
the winding entrance to rouged
light flickering with powdered flesh
yellow of gold,
then black to ivory
a frightful circus in a palace of turn
within the grate of execution.
51

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SENTRY

In Edvard Munch's painting, The Scream, eyes
are grouped as discs -- almost rotund arches,
much as suns breaking over an eclipsed wall.
Hollows, jittery the bridge a creamed escape
careening the soul madly backward
a pastel gathering sky -
water rivulets where two solitary, graven figures
seem indulging a flaccid, breaking stream.
52

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THE POTATO EATERS

The potato eaters -
grim, weathered souls
wrenching a meal
from sandy waste.

The dark toil lined ridges
carried from their fields
to each human face,
dim, pale light
as shadowy as
lives eked out upon this stoney rash of soil.

Brows, a murky legend
of overwork -
deflected h