Grateful acknowledgment is made to Frederick Barthelme's Mississippi Review (MS) which first published this poem.
from the collection MULTIPLE ABRASIONS
Breaker
This is the system has you claw off
The wallpaper when your lover announces
She wants a relationship
Lined with asbestos
This is the system has the shy smile
Turn into the lion’s head and neon sign
Just when the butterfly net is raised
This is the system has you
Washing in your white teeth to the shore
When every boat you capsized
Carries someone else through a flash of searchlights
To an island only you had dreamed of
Copyright © 2000 by R Bartkowech