Towards Stasis

July 02, 2005

I am merely a mouth--

swallowing scraps
falling down from the table,
tasting discontentment
of every kind.
The master of the house
knows my abject hunger,
so he strapped me
in a chain long enough
to reach his side.
He sits at the head,
drinking sadness
and picking
on his food, salted
with the memories of sons
who are not here.
We share a dismal comfort
knowing that we need
each other--


my constant presence,
his power over the length
of my shackles.


The mistress looks at us
from the other side
with a half-smile of aversion.


Revelling on the blandness
for what I am,
for what he has become.


I count the spaces
in between the stone floor
until the dinner bell.


And I cannot feel
the dampness anymore
like I used to.


That is why when he died,
I gnawed on my chain
until my mouth bled.




blue rogue