I vote for keeping the first lines as they were
KS
On 06/04/2008, Frederick Pollack <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Spring
>
>
> The lost limb hurts his balance, and he's weak.
> Turns red from something like horror
> as well as frustration when
> he can't open a clam
> or gnaw a hole through its shell
> for poison. – Is seen, therefore,
> by a smooth shadow blocking the sun;
> it descends. He squeezes through
> (this power unimpaired) a crack in the stone,
> and on the other side
> assumes the motley of his neighborhood,
> its spiny texture; waits.
> Grass waves. Constellated fish
> too fast to catch hover and turn
> as one, take the light ...
> Only his eyes show.
> Eventually the shadow leaves,
> replaced by vaguer ones of clouds.
> He sweeps up a young crab, tries
> to walk. That limb
> is not regrowing, won't regrow,
> hurts. His colors are getting
> increasingly out of control.
> He jets home, though more visible swimming.
> Pulls the door
> of bones, shells, rubble towards
> the entrance. Eats the crab.
> Should scrape the lichen from the rocks inside;
> can't. Has maybe a week.
> Last month he strangled, gored
> a rival near a female's lair;
> when she came forth
> they danced, went rainbow, and he gave her
> that limb. Fed by her
> it has burst by now; she has plaited
> the eggs (which no one wants to eat)
> in strands, and died.
> They'll hatch, drift. One who lives
> may clear out what remains of him ... A current
> sped by the gap
> above the door blows part of the crabshell
> towards him; repeatedly
> he siphons it back. –
> One imagines he's thinking about her.
> If he could speak, he would speak Schopenhauer.
>
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