Construction

Construction

Yes, I made this great dark creature.

Put it together on rainy nights,

            working furiously

under a single bare bulb,

on a folding table in the reptile

            basement of my mind.

Scraped in the damp corners

            for that nameless goo

                        my soul had

            tracked in after days of

                        aimless wandering.

Tacked on a skin of betrayals

            sculpted on a leer of cowardice

                        that drooled numbers

painted limbs with falsification

I made a heart of plaster of Paris

            like the one in my doctor’s office

fashioned a brain of disappointments

            broken glass

                        razor blades

When the ballbearing eyes snapped open

            and saw what I had done,

It ran away to hide.

But now I have tracked it down and I will

            finish the job.

John Michael Hurt   11/9/19