A single pebble
crushes;

do not minimise
destruction.

Pellets hold
the small, squeezed grain of bone –
a startling nakedness erodes
it, scars the air
it lies in;

frail and suffering
hung flowers
that hankered after warmth
ooze still their stilled perfections;

and
the innocent beetle
suffers mortally.

Grandiose, magniloquent,
the pebble forfeits nothing.

We are naked, Anne, and caught.

Inside ourselves a pitiless resilience
remains, bounds up, is shot.

The orchid in the spring
still sees it here:
as cruel as me,
as loving and perennial as you.