On the flannel sheet
in the pose of a deadman's float,
face down. The hands descend,
ignore the skin,
the xylophone of spine,
evade the blobs and lobes,
head for deep tissue,
go for the little hinges
that creak like tiny frogs—
twang the catgut strings
of the tight bruised tendons.
How rusted shut I am,
how locked, how oxidized.
Old baked-beans can,
Tin Woodwoman left in the rain.
Movement equals pain.
How corroded.
Who was it used to complain
he didn't have a brain?
Some straw-man cloth boy.
Me, it's the heart:
that's the part lacking.
I used to want one:
a dainty cushion of red silk
dangling from a blood ribbon,
fit for sticking pins in.
But I've changed my mind.
Hearts hurt.
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