Geometry of Fear

In a square, the safest space is – where?
Why do we retreat to the edge of a picture
When we’re scared, or in doubt about…
Do our starched selves hide that disarray?

Would it help if we became our shadows,
disappeared our faces, merged with the
plaster on the wall, its roughness shaping
itself into our awkward, pointy questions?

Would you like that? Or would you want to
know what we have seen, or done, or not?
Would you simply nod politely, and then pass,
in the presence of other people’s monsters?

How do you sleep at night? Between your
frame of wood, among cushions rectangular,
and the four corners of your duvet? Toward
which edge do your dreams keep driving you?

Maybe what we should embrace is round things.
No corners, nothing and no one high or low, just
smoothness continuous, the curve of a spine un-
exposed, purring, comforting, warm, and fearless.