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.