No more kind friends swinging on the legs & waiting

for death to resonate, for the throat to be stuffed full of shadows & that mad

singing breath to cease, this way there's a snap, then a clean transition

not even an echo of sound, men with clipped squares of nail

think in brickn'tile, there's a cold curve of a beer they'll have this afternoon

& the soft mattress of a wife they'll sink into tonight.
This beam was rocked by the sea in that rough cradle of empire

dragged up the salt white beach, deaf to the procession of flesh

shuffling in metal, the lightning strike of leather finding skin

(the way a divining rod knows water) this beam a dead weight & innocent

has held its own against lesser weights for centuries, each death inscribed

like a notch on a bedpost, a photo opportunity that knocks without an answer.