AQUATELOS A Thesis Presented to the Faculty ... - Cornell University

ii. Interlocutor
conical heaps of words,
each a luminous toffee, pearly wafer,
on the woodpath to school
seemingly accumulated
by careless drift, but he perceives
malice is their cause
knows it unwilling
as the snail who searched and searched
for a suitable home,
worn out at last
by an unseen burden, sank up into it
still, they are damn sweet
the wood stretches, clenches
the sun creeps into his emergent satchel
starts tipping out its eggs
as he with small noise smacks
up the woolpack, tells himself between
mouthfuls he’s not being fleeced
he knows who worded here:
the others, the jagged multitude
the genius of ridicule
he knows this path:
how it doesn’t lead to school
but to more and narrower
path and lack
of company, then an iron mouth
scorching him into
further nerves:
oh huge fist of woods, oh
saccharine sticky
roe of words—
still: the path goes on,
there’s a turn ahead—
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