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