Phallic

HAIL, steel

spike of a river,

bending and straightening,

forcing and twisting,

driving your way

down the bowels of

hills and mountains,

bending them back on all sides,

breaking them open,

tearing up children,

stones strewn everywhere!—

Your soft, clear look with its

stone-white thought—

hail, crooked grandmother,

humped on a boulder,

eyeing your daughters,

heedless of thought

from heeding their reckless,

stone-smooth,

shell-tinted offspring—

none old enough

to think as you do—

hail to your look as it lights

still softer

on the filthy (some would say)

little boys

digging their way

down the mud of its banks!