The Prodigals

We finger the wire fence of the wastepaper basket -
condemned to this cage, this casket.

We question each other. “What are you in for?”
“Not enough meat on my bones.”
“My metaphors are poor.”

Our hearts froze at her frown. Then, her pen
began scratching - scraping at our flesh
like a bayonet, again and again.

She crushed us into boulders, curled us into roses.
Rejected. Not the perfection she wanted.
In this sin-bin we strike cubist poses.

Behind bars we wait. Our pallid skin - tattered
and plastered with forgettable phrases.

Our ink spreads over us in arteries;
these letters are but half-hearted handcuffs.

At night, she can hear our heavy breathing.
We’re choking on the words she couldn’t stop herself writing.

Eventually, revenge will come to us, hot and hungry.
She’ll decide to recycle when the flow
of poetry and titles ceases,

plucking us from this prison. Her hand will clamp down;
fingers - tree roots, ironing out the creases.