but I’m just buckshot
caught in a sonnet,
and there’s just too many
shotgun shells
in my diction.

There’s gangrene
in my carrion verses;
each word, a gaping
wound of its own
shrapnel design,
puss-filled and leaking

through wrinkled
notebook paper.

A putrid smell instead of
cheap perfume lingers
on sealed envelopes, —
dried blood
in lieu of a wax seal...

waiting to be opened,
and pressed to a numb chest,

where the infection
can spread again,
and again.