Sunday, April 26, 2015

Poem a day 2015: 26

Slow Burn

For months now
a muscle in my right buttock
has been burning, a deep hot paralyzing fire

that drills down into my soul
and scoops sips of it out
until I feel flat as the devil

a paper woman in a muscular conflagration
Hell on broken wheels
limping through the streets now

of Portland, gimping up
the humps and down the hillocks
of the Oregon zoo,

standing in line at Voodoo Donuts
with the slow smoldering melt
disintegrating my hip bone

into a low murmur:
shitfuckdamn
jesuschristontoast

If I were a Barbie doll I'd beg you
with my painted eyes
to pull my plastic leg out of its socket

and let it snap back
or just twist the thing off and
throw it in the bushes

Too bad I'm alive
a living breathing 50 year old woman
in what appears to be

reasonable health for her age
who needs this damaged leg to stand on
for another 35 years or so

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