Refuge of Scoundrels (poem)

Refuge of Scoundrels

I am fidelity locked in the shell
Of a barnacle, no bounding sea shall
Pry me from the pier
The pier itself then topple in the tempest
And there, still for the hell of me, until the bout’s end bell
I clamp on like a manacle, like a thousand
pounds times a thousand pounds times a
thousand pounds of steel
That feels like success concealed
Gas and poison when the ice cap melts
Begin a slow, slow barrel roll
A yellow stream ekes snaking out
Spiraling subterranean embers
Shaping themselves in the knots of a net
Trash and treason blistering welts
Rise and splash filling rubber boots
Again the crust is soft as a waffle cone
By the poise of a broken vessel’s shard is stapled
Wiring drilled in the plates of the cranial dome
And still a snot of protoplasm bides faithful
Couched in the pit of a gnarled heart
Pebble-dashed under the gothic gable
Grown in obdurance stone by stone
Here writ the name of the formative nation
Refuge of scoundrels
patriotism

Refuge of Scoundrels

The patient

(2018, Stephanie Foster)