------------------Permafrost
Marianne Milton Dull in Duplicate One, my naked self; the other, guaranteed in green ink the dour bank stamped here. Signature shadowed signature, and I was giving it all away; still they wanted proof that the I who signed yesterday unadorned by evidence was me. I was : rhymed, dull in duplicate, lost. At night, though, some other flourished in dream-pun.
Don 't spill your guts. And a kitten, tom at the belly with its lovable intestines swagged outside and mewling, pawed at her wound-bigger-than-a-word-could-convey, and I watched, in a paralysis only Blake could care to illustrate, as she hurt herself with touch. Watched as any touch would torture her. Watched until finally she was led away. Protect yourselffrom being mauled. A bam of a house with more doors than windows, then more windows than doors, was open at every entrance to drunks wandering. I barred the way with warnings shriller by the shriek, raised metal bedsteads on their short sides to allow humans to pass but not the white bear prowling. No one attended. Then the terrors of a woman mauled, and calm descended. On me. She would live. The others scattered. I tore the house up at its green roots.
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