The residue smell of yesterday’s tiger balm across my shoulders, blood vessels broken above my pelvis from the tool belt.
Beowulf at the tunnel, his layer of mail.
My thin layer of white thermal to cover me, the blue gray of the morning filling these rooms.
The smoke from my cigarette. Beowulf on the platform, Grendel in the tunnel.
The clear water running between the tracks, the slime billowing like ladies hair.
Calluses across my hands, calluses on my feet, my hips.
Denim or canvas to cover the whole of me, the twenty eyelets to lash each boot.
The sword point of Beowulf blunt against concrete.
The ghost train with windows blacked out, work train filled with tools, slows into the station.
Leathery Grendel spread like a spider across the top of the train.
The red weight, the ox blood of the toolbelt. Grendel descending.
The terrible saw that lengthens my arm, the sinew and muscle that makes up my arm. The two rows of eight bones that make up my wrist.
Beowulf and Grendel collide against one another.
Beowulf and Grendel colliding.
