Long Division: Strains Of One

Dainty figurines, collide-expand

Upon the altar, knotted-stained

For which they stand; warped and dated

Like the mores buried, still, straining to inhale

Knee-deep down, beside, within—

The Laundering of time pronounced, for without

Borrowed—procured ceramic, forgone—

As it is with the stuttering of art, from in,

Unknown qualities emerge, myths and absolutions

Laying bare before the mantles, and within

All illumine beneath each face it makes appear.

  “      Strength bemoans the martyr, as the power of fear, is concealed within each face before you here—those of strangers and Judases alike—whose stones are visibly clear, not in hand but in the discoloration within each their eyes”