Chapped Lips
How exquisite, that inability,
facing the bitter wind,
walking headways, step by slow step,
into it, the way the second hand steps
steadily into three, six, ten, twelve,
always onward, straight on, the circle
an illusion, artifact of the clock-
maker's art, and even before the clock
had been conceived the seconds
goose-stepping the plank non-stop,
to stop licking one's lips, already red,
cracked, the human frailty in the face
of the elements, wind, salt, time un-
relenting, the sweet pain, being alive.
Copyright © Roy Jacobstein All rights reserved
The Threepenny Review, 2007
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