017: Black water / Winterdance

I stared down the severed neck of an antarctic exoskeleton

into reflexive waters that thirst for moonlight,

no echo made it back, fish and fishermen extracting

glum notes from the cayman's jaw grip.

Shoelaces and tongues tied in an effigy of disorder,

inviting me to dance the scalpel can-can in clinic waiting lines;

I declined politely,

as they were numb to the workings behind sclerotic curtains.

Your name, exotic, ringing of distances and fractured meanings

superimposed on the desert masonry of my nail-carved chapel

and the epiphanic wake left me to wonder the icefields,

stormwatching for signals of all too familiar alien life.

Adorning my wall, golden calculus table to determine

whether to apply that soothing litany;

maybe the polar twin of my nemesis is impervious.

Spotting the angels in the architecture of deathbeds

seems to have become the new national sport,

for soft-spoken words are blood kin

to those silent waters.