Nothing is ever what you thought it was
and what you think it is--
Whether joke retold almost never funny
enough to sell the soul
assumed the prodigal pith of wit or worse--
The barnacled heart squeezed tentacle-tight

by the mind and aware of none of it--
What you think it is
sells shy and rises contorted--
Obscure and sublime and stupid as any thrush
thrashing in the underbrush
before its dimune heat pools upward--

Black eyes glint and it is the world afire--
Nothing bartered and little burned.