Termite

I see that one arm is stubbed
by something. No one else can see
this, like it isn’t true.
To them, I am tragedy,
and I let them.

I am a hot potato
and they drool over food.
My crippled hands shove their
mouths full of muscle.
They like it raw
and tough.
So, I give them my back bone
to gnaw on,
they snap it like baby pea stock.

I spend two years in the ground,
done with legs
and feet
and toes
and balance.
I buried myself in dirt,
living with termites.

The thing about termites that no one else can see,
is that they aren’t true. To them, we are tragedy,
and we let them.

The Bugs

Oh! The bugs are marching
one-by-one
in
my head, my head

my head
it’s latched on by
commitment

Thank God! Else it
would have shaken off
with rickety waves of
apprehension
I am standing on

thousands of microscopic
bug legs
strutting,
fashionably strutting
in hand crafted
black leather wedges

chewing up
the poise that carries me
through rocky terrain
mixing
creating
cement bricks of
disquietude

trampling my resplendent
garden
of backbones.

Yellow Belly

Where are they? Oh, I have lopped off
both stones!!

The pair hung below
unused –
what should have been bold
is now shriveled.

What disappointment!

Do not fear, dear Man,
they will be kept well,
here in palms;

in succulent, sweaty,
sweet feminine
palms.