Initial Deception

Taken in by 'that I was a poet'

That portrait painted by my wife

after 'estrangement'

how she

bone-netted light by charcoal from

flesh gnawed off the skull

bone

for want of air, grey green as young,

skeleton soul . . .

I sat so still, the spider on

my elbow made a clean get-a-way.

Yet when she lined in a jaw (not mine)

of rock

to hint in time, when ripe enough to

stir

that sagging chin ought bone with

character

be broken,

and obey the law, and lock,

I remembered

not

being able to withhold howls of

bitter as the taste of toad

blood

laughter

for

the light was bitter and my eyes were dead.

Now

tearing up some old love letter

I know

the man she made

I made

was only made

up out of

bits of

torn into strips

writing paper...