Poetic Exercise

Our experience is too firm,
we've got to figure out how to spread it.
We've got to smelt our strict jackets,
got to smelt and smudge ourselves
before we can salt ourselves -
or be salted.

She wrangles with the horsefly,
bungling with her blunt metal hand.
She shrinks, shrugs the insect away.
Maple leaves rake her sides
when she runs like a car
shriven of the sin of brakes.