held fast from flying into nothingness

along

the numberless slant passages

of all

that slips and plummets,

sagging like glaze-eyed fishes in the air,

the shiny tip imbedded in

the textures, the peripheries of flesh.

Whatever’s hardened doesn´t catch,

scratched on its way to infinite falling.

Only the soft are stopped

in every bony meat and marrow

of their sliding mass,

a momentary slab, blood smearing

the retaining wall,

brightening the rips, weight deepening,

eye fixed

on the intractable device

like those medieval torturers

or Turkish pashas

who inserted it under the ribs

of infidels and watched them

kick and dangle through the day,

pausing to wonder now and then

at such ingenious simplicity,

the length, the sturdy shank and bend,

the exquisite attenuation of the barb.