Trespass

The lake's ice breaking up in springtime's
sudden thaw, a father's drunken breath

pinning a child's shoulders to the bed—
mastodon bones ossifying below the floor

of that virgin bog. Must loss be sullied
by our need to love whatever survives

such temporal cul-de-sacs? Why give
voice to any of that? Leave those watery

pages closed—case studies bound in tomes
a child could drown in. Such reticence

becomes us, dignity but a portable ark
that we shoulder through the wilderness.

Copyright © 2003 Timothy Liu All rights reserved
from Gargoyle
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission