on the ends, there are ends

bookends are part o' brackets
a'brackenin around in the headertrace

glaciating, salivating, comma-anding 
until the pause smells too much like a mill

paper, to be precise, cutting across the face
with the whiffs of a hundred trillion septic

tanks, broken, leaking into the grass 
at the far edge of the park on a hot

and hot day; pause again; let the 
space become a parenthetical 

monument to that which only
shivers between the covers