Unanswered Letter by David Spicer

Like the last gladiator circling the far north’s
taiga, I fling myself in your direction,
victory in my limbs lifting me to punish
you with double entendres and electricity
of my studied stupidity. I remind you
and myself as I decay day by day that we
exploit each other with the acid of our
smogged words. Catherine, I’m a reactionary,
and you an insurgent against war stories
of the Philippines and the Yukon.
Steer clear of my sabotage, and don’t eat
crayfish I offer you, my glowering sweetheart.
Let’s construct a new device we use
to compose letters, one that mollifies
you in the panic of my swiveling
elevator moods. I flex at the crevice
of my abyss and squeeze bandaged limbs,
knowing you might deprive me of your
face’s faults and beauties. If you’ll welcome
me this one last time before I kick
the casket I’ll never buy, I promise that
the black clouds of my psyche’s distemper
won’t hurt you, that the gold cross
I bear will shine and won’t rot as long
as you remain an itch I can scratch.

David Spicer has had poems in Chiron Review, Alcatraz, Gargoyle, Easy Street, Third Wednesday, Reed Magazine, Santa Clara Review, Rat’s Ass Review, Midnight Lane Boutique, Ploughshares, The American Poetry Review, and elsewhere. The author of Everybody Has a Story and five chapbooks, he’s the former editor of raccoon, Outlaw, and Ion Books. His latest chapbook is From the Limbs of a Pear Tree, available from Flutter Press.