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The Stone
I
The years come as a woman
to every man and
say
Your path is mud, gravel
and you must take it
on your face
II
I burned my first cigarette
in a house of rock and ivy
it was there
among the mold and
vinegar air
that death began its love
for me
and I learned to drag
my heels
Metaphors, after Plath
I find nouns do not suit me, their confidence
in being what they are and always--
the meaning blows off like a valve.
I am not concrete. I am more dying
than the dead, a hand on a cinder, not ash.
Who is more inclined to fairness than a noun?
aroseisaroseisarose, is a rose! Not this,
pronoun me, objective case I, useless I.
And I know all in flat lines, geometry,
chicana curves, parallels--
I would rather be then or setting,
a dying man's tongue with its spit
between unfamiliar wordings.
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