“Marvel Method”

Like War in chains,
a grape dangles above
anticipating lips, ajar.
War peels open the King’s comic
with a single, liberated toe,
Reader-Digests a preordained swoop of ink
that paints the King’s jolly lips
suckling grape skin,
puppet strings pulling the meat apart
and mashing it together,
filling the whole frame.
Next panel, surrounded by an electron cloud
of blue dots—
the saber-tooth Slave Girl
flashes a Knife against her thigh,
tosses the King’s grape feast aside—
end scene.
To be continued.
No one ever inked the Knife’s wince
as it licked the king’s perforated neck,
as it obeyed the “cut here,” the dotted line,
as it wondered whether gapped teeth
would do a cleaner job.
The serrated edge grates against the skin,
coughing a reluctant red.