Poetry

Even my axe tries to hide
and under its rust a childless edge
exhausted in this stump, its fruit
sanded, smelling from rain and iron

—I grip the handle
to come to a stop :a finishing stroke
covered with footsteps
each deeper, deeper, the last
a cliff falling through the Earth.

I will say, It's enough! drink some water
to remind my breath to wait
let it sit by the river
and icing over my throat
the sunset sharpening my graveside

—again, It's enough!
as if a long, curved tiller
was somehow in back
and waiting.