An ostrich ate my heart out on a Sunday afternoon.

A judge deemed that ostrich a martyr.

Opening the iron grate seared the soft flesh under my nail,
an iron golem to feed the flames and promote subservience.

One day the overthrow, one person the corpus callosum.

Sagebrush the landscape with red hues born in Indian Paintbrush.

Eternal turtleshell the skybox of our children.

Across my brow bleats three streams of blood underneath thorn halo.

Ornery ostriches cry “Browbeat the bloodless!”

Overall, poets protect pronunciation with the voracity of a warden.

Exception: everybody    Included: nobody    Otherwise: humanity

An asylum at the peak of existence, a library.

My lover left me for the pack after she heard me hang myself a country away.

An orange is my heart in the sense that an apple is your sin.

Her freckles drag me behind her like a friend, hand in hand, up a grassy hill.