An Adam Fell Poem (1)

Corporation

                        I don't know how to say 

how I feel politely, or poetically, or without 

the jugular and collapse of the immediate 

heart, so tonight, I won't say anything at 

all. Just stare out the window at our 

stunned little writhe. Hold back the 

strongest urge to knock out a few of the 

capitol's most critical walls, replace its 

fiber optic cables with lightning bugs, 

replace the investment bankers all with 

bunker busters. I lock eyes with the 

capitol's bright and empty rooms and admit 

that, sometimes, deep in my affluent, 

American cells, I miss my body carved to 

projectile. I miss trebuchet shoulders and 

knuckles flaked to arrowheads, miss my 

hands massive and molded from molten to 

the bolts of ballistas. I miss blackjack and 

cudgel and quarterstaff and flintlock. I miss 

pummel and pike and I am not proud of 

this. I know it's not a healthy feeling. I try 

to un-arm, to un-cock. I try to practice my 

breathing. I try The Master Cleanse, The 

Stationary Bike, The Bikram Sweat, The 

Contortion Stretch, The Vegan Meatloaf, 

The Nightly, Scorching Bath, The Leafy 

Greens and Venom Television, The Self-

Mutilation of a Winter's Run, but we can 

only cleanse our bodies so much before we 

realize it's not our bodies that need 

detoxing.

(2012)