Tezcatlipoca

A small toad carved from obsidian
regards me with what
could pass for a smile:
for I am hunched, torsioned,
oblique as any letter
in the insect alphabet.
Its sightless eyes freeze me
between a tick & a tock.
What will I do for a knife?
The night holds its tongue
like a secret agent.

This is not a blackness that absorbs light
but a blackness that reflects.
If it were water, I would enter it
incrementally, yielding to absence
like a zipper coming apart.
If it were a mirror, I would mount it
on the stump that used to be my left foot,
so as I walked over the earth, my enemies
would see only themselves
& learn to take the blame for
all their ills.