Handle with care
Begin with the ribbon:
pink strips of fresh-flayed
skin, wrapped like un-
broken apple peel, curling
fast
in the evening heat.
Then the lid:
booby-trapped and barbed;
edgeless, cornerless, boundless,
without hold or catch; wax-
sealed
with frozen, yellowed pus.
Step aside when opened:
Zyklon A is deadly mixed
with tears; something about
salt and cyanide and
silence;
Cruel, if not so Unusual.
And inside, once inside:
broken vows and promises,
decay like the blossoms
of a tomb, the chrome of
negatives,
the copper of blood.
Potpourri for the damned
So lower your ear, if you dare:
to the hiss of dying wasps
to the moan of caged beasts,
to the withered, haggard
breaths
of the dying.
Their soured apologies
whirring and stirring
within a box, this
box, a box sometimes called
Heart.
©s rogers 31 december 2011
