The agony that peoples
such tormented heights
convulses in stone-breath.

The outward semblance
swells in neat conformity,
the lower thump of blood
curdles inside its chilled contraction.

Sensing outcrops, pale, limp wheat-blades
whitening beside the agonising certainty of beasts,
teethes like a fleshless jaw.

I hold my head up  
out of practice.
I perfect the stance.

The agony confronts me.
                       Stone.
                                 Stone-heights
group in their rigid surveys
me.