Corpses Clog The Litmags
         by Esther Cameron

The soul is naked among enemies,
And nowhere does it take more grievous wounds
Than where "well-meaning" poets hack away
At one another's poems. Merciless

As angels of the IRS, they pounce
On any word that each deems not OK,
Seldom standing still for long to guess
At the moving shape on the poem's horizon

Or hear the word the poem cannot quite say.
The poet, on his knees, starts to confess
His errors as they're fingered one by one.
Soon from his comrades' hands he takes the knife

And cuts the poem's tie to his own breath
And does the rest of what the pack wants done.
Its maker's eyes lit with thirst for its life-
Blood are the last thing the poem sees.

The corpses clog the litmags by the ton.

                Esther Cameron