SOBRIQUETS

I was never able to help
Myself as a child
From rifling through other

People’s drawers, my sister was
Afraid of the kidnapper, but I knew
I could knock him out

With a lamp, in college I used
To rap my way out
Of fights, after college I could not help

Pointing out the absurdity
Of violence to any aggressor and thus
Absorbed many fists

I punched a hole
Through my boyhood
Door and my

Parents installed a punching
Bag in the basement, I bludgeoned
A young, flightless bird

To death with a fencepost
With a friend, we were five and neither
Understood previous

To that what death was, it’s still
The worst thing
I’ve ever done, my stomach

Sickens in contemplation
Of its backyard grave, the one
I visited regularly

As I grew, Ted dreams
His hearty glass
Shoulder is tapped by a procession

Of two-headed nails and a pregnant
Sea turtle kicks sand
In my love’s face as all actions

Are consequent to the extemporal
Implosion of choice—what is not possible
Is not to choose, so we close

Our windows or dash
Into the cacophony, submit
Ourselves to the sadism

Of timing or acknowledge 'god
Is what we make
Of him', I wanted to flower

Spontaneously in the nightgown
Of rust, to vivisect
A dragonfly mid-flight

And trace the minuscule
Scatter of its organs, in County Clare
Sits Bunratty

Castle and there I left the casing of my index
Finger under a canon after my first
Sampling of snuff, I revel in the iconic

Boredom of my name, secret
Myself in the panopticon’s rotating
Eye, if a phantom trudges

Elephantine from room
To room—that’s life and far
Be it from me to

Burden a figment with sobriquets.