ravine

I question the need
for petty bureaucracies
such as these. You see it
as I: strata: grain
of a trillion dead molluscs

Lime

middle managed
through a thought — assigned
to the palisade as either
credit
or debit
until there
there — see how
that juniper
fist-strung to this lurid cliff
leans into life as if alkaline

dis-agonied

zero-summed in the weathers
insubordinate as those
who would
rebuke their wage
and refuse
this ravine this grim
taxonomy
this cruel dictate
carefully
cut through stone
algae-slummed
short-sunned
and cold
cold
cold

Image: Andrew Buchanan on Unsplash