DIVIDE AND BE

The grids we wrap
around our lives
like chicken wire
don't damage us

much. (How could anyone
accuse cross-hatchings
of scratching
the figures they define?)

Only the first line ever
made a difference

when it drew a point out
into the quest of a wave

which furrowed the darkness
with a ripple of brinkmen

who run from the centre
to an ill-defined exile

where the initial undoing
may never again be

reconciled.