Color me bruise, my
teeth are tired. Old bones,
new meat, sharp steel
equally comfortable in hand.
There is
an itch, a-tingle in the velvet
of antlers stretching up, blood-fed bone
grown only to be shed. We are
trying not to turn teeth to so much grist,
grinding canines to sleek. We are
honing
swirling our nails at the whetstone
and it sounds curiously
like pen-scratch on paper.