Artifice as Armor

" Artifice as Armor "

by Suzán Jiván

for The Poets @ The Chapterhouse

Man minds
his sleeping
grandchild
after midnight
while dreaming
of pack ice
shrinking
like retreating
white-winged
endangered
species
forced to breed
in captivity
in quarantine
hitchhiking
on nursery trees
stored in igloos
made of concrete
covered by stone-eating
microbes blighted
by fungi and lichens
along land-locked highways
less and less reliable
at different times
with heavy and light rains
falling at varying places
Fractured into factions of attack
unmarked and unmapped
in a monotony of gravel
parsed by tangents
on a sliding scale
nudged here and there
without looking back
at sniffing animals
wearing
artifice as armor
while stabbing
fingers skyward
like bona fide strivings
of rapt exercise
with passive statuettes
in prickly defense
of morbidity
with pivotal trophies
proudly pointing out
the rapture of song and dance
with a contrarian maverick
from the prevailing underclass
complete with gross misunderstandings
praised within an idyllic cast...