Interrogating A Sickle

What a devious curve

You carry. A burden?

I think not. You, batch of breath,

You shoulder it with mastery. And

Still you yank a trailing sack.

You are so versatile! A

Magicked many inhabit your arsenal.

Do you polish it often?

To make the sour swerve of it 

More proficient? Do you

Let it fester? Let it ring with rust 

So it triumphs with more a tear

And a tug than a terminal trim? 

Do you drag in that crumpled bag

Your face, too?

Your comb-over, your

Strawberry scrubs, your mucus and

Glue? 

A priest, a parasite, a private bud

Born to unscrew. 

How do you come?

Some proud plume of smog.

Hooded, hunched like a parable.

Or do you don a cloak more

Chameleonic?

Blending to brothels, to brooding

Leftovers, to frothing water

Weighing down the prize. 

A perfect plundering. 

Do you smile? When you 

Do what you do and you see it

Through

Do you revel in it? 

How foolish, you're always veiled as

The victor.

But I once read in a fat book that you

Let one slip through. The fat book

That leeched, preached on my

Soul for a decade, until it had

Shriveled it down

To a crooked cashew.

Still fragrant enough to attract you. 

Do you wince after every fake rising?

A pillow pristine, sheets solid with

Formaldehyde.

Do not look so shocked! So 

Typically abysmal!

I know you are sleepless.

Your head heavy with one eye active

For every two.

They say repent, repent

For seconds ill-spent but they haven't a clue.

I know you are sleepless.

Omniscient monarch, clutching

Both sun and moon.

I know your lips are tasteless, 

Your heels are beat-less.

No rest, we fragile crops need

Tending to.

© 2014 BENJAMIN SMITH