Red Ink

Midnight to dawn, our instruments work; Exploratory surgery on heart and mind; Sharpened words slicing skin and nerve; Poking, prodding, invading, always bleeding. Tissue splits, guts spill, the heart hemorrhages; The most vulnerable specialists, we are terminal; In dark corners, we write our eulogies in rhymes, Red neon on silver canvas, ancient marquee signs. We welcome strangers and friends into our dens, An impetuous invitation to a desperate bloodletting, Or for the most morose poet, a public disembowelment; Our pretty pen dancing, piercing a hemorrhaging heart.