to flense
       

This part of you has a name:
integument. I prefer facsimile

of a smile; cut flesh that shows
the baleen's bend. Whalebone, however thrown

about by open mouths, can mean
so many pieces. Such bleached variety

in the wind, where even the stones go blank, sleep,
struggle along breath that escapes

like steam to cold stream above
the deck. There it hangs, brief, in

wonder; pondering whether to drop, to die
in the sea—or keep silent, endure

on as if haar, or sea fret, or simple
stratus, unhinged, come to earth.

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Copyright © 2017 Matthew Minicucci All rights reserved
from Small Gods
New Issues Poetry & Prose
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission