Stickman

the forked man picks his way
where he likes
among the hollowed trees
and the refuse of centuries
spewed in strata
over the ferment
this self-made man is tied
at the joints
with strips of dog hide
he is filled to the spout of his pointed chest
with the clotted ore of the earth
pushing the ground behind
with cobbled stilts
he could be said to amble
but more like he wheedles
moves with
a certain snappy
intelligence
head like a sack of arrows
full of unspent purpose
he’ll inspect with one smoky glass eye
the rise and fall of the ranges
and the hanged juries who preside
over his moldering mind
the moon is round
he said
like a cracked
and boiling egg