The Legacy of Springfield, Ohio

You built walls in your brain

to stop all our discourse;

To you I was five years old at age seventeen

and even when my inner skin, dry and raw,

was invaded, uninvited,

I couldn’t make myself broach them,

and admit to five months of

what was similar to this but as

different as lobsters are to ferrets;

for my own safety this was pushed away

for another five while

I became dryer and dryer

but with a wet, unbound mind;

When I attempted to vault across,

throw the sapphires at your feet

I misjudged the distance;

And the sack of diamonds fell first

they hardened you to hearing the truth

which I needed to tell to know how to

prevent another disaster for one who wasn’t me;

But I never could,

you poured the boiling barbecue sauce

into my throat

so I would stop mentioning those mustelids,

and the claw closing around my wrist slowly clamped down

(7/28/08)