Palace
After
Paul Guest
I never
thought I'd be sick of living along the mud:
the
flexible and slick twigs, the stick of summer,
the sweet
bite before the core
the
translucent finger pressed into the sun
duking it
out before the frost—
so much
about death engenders. But the ruin
came from
the flick of two switches. My teeth,
what once
were grim experts
at tearing
flesh from the rind,
became a
notched edge of coin.
So
different, from the teeth
folded
into the skull of the hare
or the
eggshell-like
head of a
mink. Ours are the worst
in all the
animal kingdom
when I
look to the sparrow's face
to the
bluegill's protruding lips
to
tadpole's unformed feet,
I see my
better. No matter
how deep
in darkness I can swim
the
distance from the surface
is
unbreakable
and the
throbbing tension,
the
rigidity of my lungs,
the terror
and first realization
of leaving
behind
catches me
a kind of
poison.
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