The reader steps onto the page.
Take me, teach me, she pleads, and
begins to read the poem.
It announces it's about
a wrestler, and she's not
stupid, she allows it may be
even a rhetorical wrestler but
she's two lines in & the thing
makes no sense, lacks sure feet,
but still she's trusting, steps
further onto the page, her whole
body there now, seeking music, seeking
some meaning, any meaning but climbs from
line
to line in confusion, she wants out,
tries to leave but is caught
in the web of words, stuck
in the thick & viscous silk
of ink: she's splayed there
on page five and he has her,
crawls out from the dark spine
of six, big black pen in hand
and makes the kill.
It is not rhetorical at all:
it is bloody, and slow, and sexual.
Another one dead, he says.
(Bones on the bookstore floor.)
Gerald Fleming
Contents | Mudlark No.
3
| 3 | 5 |