Peter Stuhlmann

A Deft Hand

The clouds drag their black,
swollen bellies over mountains,
rooftops, the blunt
foreheads of bank towers,
across the steeple's
anachronistic point. When
younger, and beautifully angry,
I would imagine the steeple
as a warning to whatever god
stood watching--come too close
and we'll stab you as we would
our own. Was it the mountain,
or our buildings that opened
the clouds then, to a thin slash
of light, like the glint of a scalpel
waiting for a deft hand,
like a freshly opened wound.

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The 2River View, 4_1 (Fall 1999)

2River