POET

All you know of me

is what I allow you to see:

snowy iceberg tip,

red lines on a

7-panel drug test

in a thousand-substance world,

pixel-wide swath

cut from a deckle-edged photo,

blue litmus paper

screaming its red acid alert

but blind to base,

wisp of smoke

from a mine conflagration

that has burned,

underground, unseen,

for decades.

You see but a thread

dangling from the hem

of my fullness,

a glimpse through the crack

of a nearly closed door,

you, cuffed and bound

in Plato’s Cave,

decide I am an old animal,

dry of bone and

weak of sight,

from the slim shadow

I cast on the only stone wall

you will ever see.

You do not suspect

my coal-stoked yearning,

my dopamine surges

fed by sunshine and truth,

my lye-laced embrace

that will burn you

to the bone

then crack open your hull

with a sub-sea fist,

rip out your soul,

and sing to it.

Tom Friedman, Untitled (Styrofoam Cups), 2002

Seventy-five stacked and glued Styrofoam cups

hand-painted in colors

166.5 x 3 x 3 inches

Page 27

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