Daring the Gods (Revised)

So the world sometimes leaves you wondering
of your place in it, whether you've cause and reason
for breath or only habit.

So you look to the sky, or wherever your gods dwell
and fix a gaze forward and hurl yourself along,
drive sixty in a snow storm, carry timber across a lake
in a fourteen foot boat and three foot swells,
the white caps licking at the gunnel, jump
from a thirty foot cliff into dark waters, crawl
into an empty bear's den and run, face blood drained and corpse pale,
when you realize empty is a mistake.
And when it's done, and you're still there, close
your eyes, let your heart slow, let life slow.

It's not time and there are things to carry.
You're still needed.

Knife

You, I know you. Come
to seek solace and redemption
in my silver sheen?

What
is it you want now? A kiss,
a touch like that of a long absent lover?
An edge drawn
through your past your memories of lips
pressed to yours, of silence in northern pines
of whispered slanders, cuts delivered by tongue?

What is it
you want of me? A slow carved
smile, as cure for your malaise,
under your chin?
A clutched embrace, my glistening
self driven like a nail
as you hold me in your heart
like an old love, my edge
shining in the hot
red dark of your pulse

Talk to me no more
of anything less,
you vacillator, you coward.
No more
of your teasing games, your gentle
wounds and puckered flesh as wards
against your insufferable tears

Do you want me? A last
and permanent kiss?
No?
The fold me. Sheath me.
I don’t want to talk to you anymore.