Accidental
 
 
A Little Like Rasputin

 
Floating in the icy lake tonight,  my brother
dares the waves to deposit him ashore.

Carried riptide to riptide,  his subdued surface                      
splits apart.   His atoms break into confession

absorbed by thunder.   Like pepper flakes
a kick in each swallow,  the churning,

life preserver carved around his eye —
what a socket what a socket —

even a tree couldn’t blind him
and when he froze they simply drove

him to a bigger town to thaw in their
hyperbaric chamber a little like prison

or a butcher’s window.   He was too big.
There was no apple lodged in his throat.

He wouldn’t take his jacket off
even in the crematorium.   That cold.


 



 
 
 
 
Philomel   acrylics, resins, Polaroids on board
Copyright 2006, Carolyn Krieg


Copyright 2011,  Elizabeth Kerlikowske

Elizabeth Kerlikowske is an artist as well as a poet.  Her most recent books are Rib,  from Pudding House Press,  and "Her Chores",  a Binge Instant Chapbook and Minibroadside.



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