‘Are you all cured now?’

Oh, darling, if only you knew.

(But I’m a monument of
Self-restraint, whittled from
Rotting wood. Ragged shards
Chip off, jagged splints.

The eyes deep wells - an imperfect
Effigy, of sorts. Even now
I’m burning up, and awfully so.
Thick and stifling, the air bates

And provokes me. As the season turns,
I’m patched with canvas sacks -
For a time my steely gaze
Kept the birds away, but now

I’ve gone to seed, flaking
Dry brushwood and sown with doubt.
I grow strangely bulbous
At the centre, starlings nesting

And feeding near my abdomen).
I have questions of my own,
You know, and they all beg answers.
But yours, well, it came to me

Innocently, cut clean and smooth
Like a butter knife. A token
Offering, an afterthought.
I’ve preserved one half our

Peace of mind. My satisfaction,
You see, is a solitary one:
It tastes pungent, sweet, and
Maddeningly powerful.