The Staggering Marionette

If my poems had lips they would hide in your pout like secret honey
A whispered cache of melody dripping away in a sea of awkward noise

If my poems had balls they wouldn’t be poems at all but skinny dogs
fighting in streets running rabid, their ribs jutting out with fangs bared

If my poems had spines they’d rattle inside snake eyed arroyos
Ancient fork tongued slithering duets between hunter and the hunted

If my poems had throats they’d scream til my lungs filled with blood
Coughing up bad metaphors, non sequiturs and your final kiss
I can still taste it. In thunderstorms. When I think of wolves

If my poems had fingernails they’d rake into your back
Scrawling out a love note just after you came
as you carve out the word goodbye into mine

If my poems had wings they’d be ink black feathery thieves
Snatching up all your keepsakes and shiny troves of treasure
I’d wear your rusty hearts around my claws and caws
And decorate my nest with your rings, vows and lockets

If my poems had stomachs they be distended, swollen and starving
like an Appalachian black bear waking up from its long winter repose

If my poem was you then there would be a long line of past readers
Still searching for the stanzas to fill the absence of your missing words

If my poems could smile they’d swallow up all the sorrow and grief
Lying shipwrecked. Forgotten. Reclaimed under ocean tide

If my poems were hands they’d bleed rivers of stigmata. Noble martyrs
Fallen heir to the holy dance of mountain rock sky dirt and sea
Fallen heiress whom ripped off wings. Whom cut these ropes.
Her birdsong clutching its severed placenta gently pleading

For our return