By Richard King Perkins II

He squats naked and glorious.
He does not move.
Intimidated, everything comes to him.

Light, substance, power.
The naïve, the curious, the envious.

It’s true and utterly transparent.
I despise his perfection.
He is far more than I am:
Beautiful, glacial, crystalline.

Like an Arctic snow drift,
he has drawn swaths
of the frozen element into himself

and his gathered massiveness
unbalances my familiar territory.

I cannot plow him under.
I am repelled, then once more defeated.

He smirks.
His tyrant black eyes rule until springtime.
Yet even in decay.
arrogance leaves him mute and severe.
I laugh clouds of steam
at his shrinking, silent puddles.