Scalpel cut
With an unskilled hand
Like a crash of glass
And twisted metal.
A wreckage of nerve endings
Gyrate, issuing moments
Like curses from the mouth
Of a man locked away.
Fire to the pictures
That didn’t explode
When you fisted them deep
Into boiling gasoline
Holding the match in your mouth.
Letters tear
Like snapping bones
With the meat of your body
Open and exposed to infection
Crack open the ribcage
And expose the heart
Ripping away the tissue
That would allow it to be
Massaged back into beating.
With every tendon
Strain and discover
What was
And lacerate those moments
Over and over and over
Until they are
No longer memory.
Sunday, May 17, 1998