The Face Of The Wind Poem by richard ilnicki

With serrated lids of tin cans for hands
the wind came from dead center.
An algebraic unknown
hung around its invisible throat like original sin.
The wind was scouring the sky
looking for an innocent equation to attach to
like some long-haired free radical
in search of a lonely electron.
Its odd integers housed inside pine coffins
had been deposited six fathoms dep
below the withdrawn Mississippi co-sign.

The wind's sexually addicted numbers
kept raping infinity from behind, odd man out,
then falling like subservient top-heavy dominoes
to the call of the wild
and rabbits' feet on key chains.

The wind found its exhausted self
buried up to its pencil neck
to a frightening Nth degree
by an impetuous power, some incalculable
sucking pig knuckles dry.

The wind killed many innocents along the way
to Mariah
with fingers pricked at the spindle
searching for an alias or an alibi.
The wind ripped the kid's limbs off
like dry tree branches
and scattered them to the four corners of the earth

an arm here, a leg there,
but the wind
when accused of nefarious behavior
pleaded innocent
because it had neither face nor fingerprints.