The End

The end of ambition
is a loaf of hard bread unbladed
on a table.

I still want to cut the bread,
to eat the bread, but it is too late.

I still want to shake the salt shaker,
pregnant in the shape of a snowman.

They are what they are.

The disfigured. The hardened.
The simple.

The snowman's eyes are not eyes.
The eyes are not a window.
They are reticent as paper.
Here, there are

no Greek gods to write about,
just the spiky cries of a baby,

and the private legend of her birth.
Here, there are slats of shutters
to look out of.

Mucous. Slab. Skin flakes that reappear
and disappear.

There are kisses that turn to rashes.
Rashes that ruffle around the wrists.

In the end of ambition,
there are angles again, minerals flattened
from trophies,

dust to bat away, the end
of everything masculine,
and vials and vials of joy.

Copyright © 2008 Victoria Chang All rights reserved
from Gulf Coast
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission