Everything Has A Reason

but nothing conforms
to the reason it has.

Think of a baseball skinned
and nailed to a post
as a warning
to the unwelcome few.

Think of a leather belt.

You have knitted my mouth
at the lip. Your clacking needles
and goat-hair wool.
You promised a scarf.

I will sing with words half-formed.
My breath will be an anguish to your ear.
I will eat through the tips of my fingers.

—PETER NORMAN

(Originally published summer, 2011.)