by James Thurgood
should you dig this jawbone up
and note a molar broken
don’t
declare he lived with pain
for so do all and
its nature
falls beyond your scope
- nor will you reckon the probing
journey of
this silver
tongue long gone, which
in keeping
with the greater machine
succumbed to
danger’s charm, thus
as it teased a jagged fang,
tearing then
swelling such that in its eloquent course
it brushed said blade again
bled,
throbbed, and though warned
took a
thousand cuts, till
by next
afternoon, as said greater machine - that is
the man of whom said tongue was but a painful cog –
found itself in
class declaiming old Capulet -
each thee
and thou scrape of wound
on demi-tooth - it would bark
at a thirteen-summered girl
who durst allow a token relayed from Romeo
two rows over
by plump hand of cueless Nurse
- this fool
contraption with
its
broke-toothed jaw a too-much-moving part
would vow this gentle lady
whose
smile raised a sunken heart
would hang, beg or starve in the streets
you who dig this jawbone up
figure which grain or nut
broke a tooth - the rest
is
one – your Verona too
will know ancient grudge, new mutiny
crossed love
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