Thicket
By Atsuro Riley
We come gnawed by need on hands and knees.
As a creature (nosing) grubble-seeks a spring.
As bendy-spined as bandy snakes through saltshrub yaupon
needle-brake.
For darkling green;
for thorn-surround.
This absorbing
quaggy
crample-ground.
Of briar-canes (intervolved with kudzu-mesh) and mold.
Of these convoluted vines we grasp to suck.
To taste the pith —
the lumen the cell-sap pulse.
To try to know
some (soursharp) something about something.
Lumen is as lumen does.
‘A little room for turmoil to grow lucid in.’
In here where Clary set her cart-tongue down (and dug, and brailled).
In here where Tynan breathed.
We grasp to suck to taste what light.
Let loose the bale that bows us down.
— Bow down.
