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Degree
by Scott Hartwich



To be instructive one must divide in the manner of clumped
iris bulbs. These are virtually indestructible, yet the human
heart instructs with its four chambers and is not.



Under the skin dorsi ripple. Flexed there isn't room for
demonstration yet one craves contact and the muscle builds.



I can show you how to cower. And I can show you the
plow and the sickle, the turning and turning and cut hands
shading eyes in the heatfield but there it stops.



We went walking. We plucked fingerlings from the creek
and watched them die on our palms. Children, we said.

 

 

 

 

 

 

© 2007 prickofthespindle.com

 

 

 

 

Scott Hartwich drives a little bus for a living in Bellingham, Washington, where he also coedits a new journal called Greatcoat. His work has appeared in Colorado Review, Diagram, Cue: A Journal of Prose Poetry and countless other journals. By countless he means a few.