The freezes visit too often
on some of the days,

longing for round and deep sewers,
forehead is warn from friction of hands,
mostly the left hand, working to wear holes,

to make openings for the tense, frightened
animals, for their escapes, for relief,

for return to the emptiness that is more
dull aching, more like the squeezing
of an adult’s hand on a child’s tiny arm,

which is far superior in the frozen mind
than all of the stabbing of ice picks

on all of those small, squeaky animals
scurrying about like lost rats in daylight.

My mind feels like that baby’s arm,
and I wonder if it is you, though I know
better, but I wonder if it is you, that fierce
beast behind all of the ice picks, and if

it is, why can’t I block them with my
sullen, stiff, messy face made of all
the tiny frayed, burned, torn wires.

.