The Satyr Proffered

These grapes of stone were being proffered, friend. — John Berryman grapes, rough-touched and round, stone- carved, to be squeezed into the fundaments of rock wine. She imagines it would be cold, not sought for its smoothness, and likely full of grit if not refined with care. The satyr laughs carelessly for one caught in stone. The cracked edges of his mouth spill grit as he leers after the loss of his fundaments which fall along the smooth, cold torso plane, exhibiting immaculate coolness at this literal loss of face. Carefully, she strokes his head, as if smoothing the fetlocks handcrafted from stone. Her affection is unforced, a fundamental attraction to those beautiful, gritty things made lovely by decay, their gritted teeth so much more interesting than the art gallery’s cold geometrics, which appear fundamental but fail to consider the careless chaos spinning at the stone center of all smooth creations. And those grapes! Their unsmooth surface mirrors the messy passion flushing the grit- dusted cheek, the hideous mouth of crumbling stone. What heat from the Dionysian’s cold, brittle fruit! The obliteration of all care if she could only perform the fundamental act of eating. She thinks about wilderness, fun, mental liberation, dancing her soles smooth, pleasure as pervasive as care is now, her feet a frenzied blur on the gritty forest floor, shaking and pummeling out the cold as she prances over starlit stones. She does not care who sees her, as she grips the stone grapes, feels the smooth, crumbling cold enter her hand, fingers embracing a thing more fundamental than earth, bone, grit.