As though the arena of this page might release you

I remove you of type, of the empty pen barrel, it would be
blasphemous to act as though your self
is of my own devising – you are too lovely

to come from my imagination. Even as I write this
I am weary of creating. Not the thinnest tendril of
lightning would suffice you. The most forbidden

alchemy could not outshine (no matter
what scientist has memorized his formula)
or devalue your delicate shape

as you lean to cradle what aches. This way
you might lay your hand over the womb of
joy and its bloody kicks, its shimmering foil that

shreds your open stare charming serpents,
venom cooling into a tempered dance. Your trick
is one that hardly any can perform,

turning poison to your paint. No king’s
triton could command you from the
smokestacks, an inventor’s finest plan,

no conveyor nor arm of perfect factory
could replicate the inertia that gathers with your
swinging in close and reaching for the vaguest

threads of elsewhere, or for me, my outstretched
brushes. Nothing is so real as your artistry.
I could not design you if I was condemned to it.

I would shake this page until you walked from it, I would
pry the sides of knives to meet your face. Otherwise
the damage circles. Otherwise the devastations triumph.

With this pen I proclaim them dead.