Caned

A stick, pared clean—no, a silver-topped bamboo-with-dagger, class doubling as club, the advantage of gravity lifted high overcoming the disadvantage of poking ahead. He demurs. Weakness either way. A man should crush opponents with a word. Naive, I muse, at your age. A cane replaces the sole’s sensors, bolsters them. Balance is a matter for the unbalanced, he says, all nuance, accusing me, Lear-lover, of too much. The earth is now close, I tell him. A sharp look. I’ll walk, he says, without.