The Hook

The hook must be baited for what brains eat

The kwansabas and equations and quatrains

and BLEEP! X-RATED!

Trying not to sex up every poem

Trying not to cuss on every page

Both imbue in some readers a thing like rage

What if their innocent child stumbles across this

before they have time to parent out

their natural responses

But still the hook, yes, requiring bait

Stab it right through anything that fascinates

The play of light splintered through crystal

The way organisms fight to live

even when miserable

The tracks in the snow abruptly stopping

like the organism lifted off without wings

or must still be here camouflaged

The matter of the demons

I was envisioning pummeling

when I punched holes in the walls

You welcoming me to spend time

sharing your space

and the fact it cures my panic

The way they can't find a convincing diagnosis

to affix to your amorphous, vast madness

Once the bait brings them in

like campers clustering closer to a camp fire

we'll hit them with smiles that can only win

to make their appetites go wilder

for forming the bonds at the depths

our inner life requires

Fueling friendships that don't vanish

after becoming vital to our hearts

We won't be wedded but welded

We'll fall forward, not apart