CRACKED WALNUT
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Streetsides and Marionettes
by Louis Murphy


years of lost battles strings
batting me Puppet I

but then my face laughs  sudden delight
at your impossible gesture

you climb up

toe the bridge
​
railing’s edge

I clap
what are my reasons for this inescapable joy?
not our shared background that glows
with the soft-slice of the sharpest blades

cuts un-noticed at first soon kindled and crawling
with metallic wasps

digging in

I hum to the LPN,‘I am so tired,’ and she
places ‘Okay’ in a tiny paper cup
two thick pills where the adjective ‘Tragic’ should be

later

tattooed green confessions creep down my arms under
the sweater it is cold in the day treatment clinic where we
convicts of head-casedness all huddle on cloth-covered foam rubber
thrones Freon bathed feet propped up but even this small comfort
requires a doctor’s note

we patients numbered share and display
scars
belt stripes
our commitment to mourning ourselves check-ins

later as morning medications wear off
our drawls move recount recent harvested evenings
our allergies to outside contact we cannot hug or hold
without being bruised swollen blasts of want

we try to adopt reasoning that the therapists pass out
info sheets facts concerning genetics addictions disabilities
relations no justifications believable to everyone
and seldom reasons many outsiders will believe
someday when I am dark matter
explained I am guessing as a stone heaved out above still water
I will be smooth drowned down through all layers of love

becoming

self one time

unable to return quiet as a soul in a crow’s beak

gobbled down into each stomach

life is all about

the guesswork as is psychiatry
outside the clinic windows
the aging wallpaper of roads lined with trees
unknown in keeping rowan waxen skinned berries

we all wish to own

even one wish

to age

like these yellow droplets

to orange

maybe

alizarin
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