cannot sell like ice
cannot sell what speaks
only as acquaintance,
a hand slips blind to care
hurt is spectre left when
falls upon an open mouth
not like a shout
but a sheet
feigns a kind of recognition
that does not hang upon
imagination, shrill
In the market with the fathers
a wall of sand and search for
salmon like a frozen tongue
and eyes that raise to greet
as one might layer beneath
the living, having tensed too
many times, the stems claimed
together, the air sharpened
orange, gripped