The poesy of threat—
that which always strives to come sharper
from the throat, which is always readier
with exact terms of fire,
verging scissor-edges, finer models
of excoriation.
Or then there’s threat, spring-loaded,
naught but face and jaw—
jaw that scorns the nicety of teeth,
one humorless turn of bone. It’s
born of a moment, hefted out
from the source at a single thrust.
And then, the honeyed horror
of velveted threat,
lumped under swarming carpets.
Suffered to rise between
the rolls of lip—this round of spikes that
all but shreds them.
-2002
