Glacial


forward as an arrow flies, that's how time moves: straight
prodigiously, through the warped infatuations
of that tip's narrow edge: forward
onward marching, righteously toward the prize;
reward, indignantly striking a marked target
vexed of its own decisivenesses
that when it strikes, not with the passionate blow
of a lover coming to grips with his mortality
but of the heroine bride, whose dress falls to her knees
as she comes to terms with the blow against her face:
needle-pointing decision.