Let's see, a pantoum.
A form-- many of you will know-- in which lines are repeated
from one stanza to the next.
I cheat and change them a little as I go.
This one is titled "Children," and the title
runs into the first sentence.
"Children--"
"--long outwardly, others can see it.
They desire so much, even erotically.
So a boy begins to walk across a frozen lake.
There are places in his life, he thinks,
that won't support the weight.
Though not so much erotically.
He is thinking about moral matters, the places in his life
that don't support the weight of his need
to understand what is right.
He is thinking about moral matters because of a fight
he picked after school.
He needs to understand what is right
given his joy, like a bird taking flight, and his regret,
all intermixed during the fight after school.
He tries distractions, a video game, an adventure movie.
He enters the joys and regrets of others,
taking flight from the thrill of blood
that had filled his mouth.
The distractions, a video game, an adventure movie,
convince him he must speak to no one about the taste of blood
in his mouth.
It'll be the secret fire that defines me, he thinks.
Convinced he must speak to no one,
he undertakes the construction of a new face, a shield
for this secret fire that defines him,
his demeanor indirect, a sentence that meanders.
He undertakes the construction of his face
as he would a walk across a frozen lake, his path
meandering, indirect, like a sentence that
betrays no outward longing, so that others
won't recognize his desires."