Trashed

A Poem

And now you resemble the lines I tossed out yesterday, unedited nonsense, diction gone bad

The image is turned into fear, isolation, the worry for when the next touch is coming

I thrashed around in weeds for a time, sliced open cattails with my hands for an early snow

Pathetic wisps of white make interrupted letters on the red shingled roof

Police drive by but not slow enough to render anything on this block a crime, not certain of its existence anyway

Shed into the skin of the reject flailing on the keyboard, limping — drag me out of here

Solemn rooms cooked well done, but I was waiting for a bit of blood left, the chewy center of misery colouring the plate

The options were always slender, the naming of things precious and made still trashable in the smacks from dismay

J.D. Harms 2020