I Wrote A Poem Today

I wrote a poem today.

And I made squash fritters for Sue and Kathryn for breakfast.

Both gave me the same kind of happiness and enjoyment because I put something of myself in something else--a little pancake, a little poem. And now there is just a little less of me.

Sorry, all of the squash fritters were eaten. Here, you can eat the poem:

The Hand Grenade

I am a hand grenade

I will explode

I will detonate in a sudden burst of passion 

and love and joyous shrapnel and sweet 

generous jags of searing metal. 

I am a hand grenade

I will explode

When my pin is pulled

my splatter zone will be smeared red with the carnage of

anger and hate and irrationality

with the offal of fear and fragility and distrust

packed into my hard pineapple core

consuming me in the welcome release of an expanding shock wave.

I am a hand grenade

I will explode

Amputating your dismissive hand mid-wave

The surprise on your face as you gaze at your spurting stump is hilarious

because hands were never meant for dismissal

in the first place

my explosion silencing your know-it-all ignorance

rearranging your entitlement in topsy-turvy fashion

upsetting you onto your big fat ass with a whomp

while you ask yourself, what just happened?

I am a hand grenade

I will explode

as surely as a rattlesnake will strike.

And so I know I am doomed

(for loneliness, either imposed or self-induced)

for who wants to pet the rattlesnake or play hot potato

with a hand grenade but still that’s not what grenades are for
in the first place.