Character Flaw

outside the brief

gloriole light

the wax turns back

into

the stiff polyps

of bears

and I watch as their

shadows return

to forest softly

at first

the wind

snuffs to

blind me

green

until I’m blasted moss

to the fir trunks

the harvest of mushrooms beneath the leaves

the millipede’s groan of chewed holes

the sacraments in bark

without knives

so hand-less

the wind flaps

me gently like

a yellow flag

Adrian Kien