Tear It Apart

Go on break its heart, don't be shy, ask it why was it said in that way and not another? Or maybe why the hell you even said that anyway? A poem enters a boxing ring gets beaten up, yet in the end the loser is a winner, the pummeling has changed its shape. A seagull poops on your head, kind of funny, everyone grins. An eighteen-wheeler jackknives, no one is hurt, poop does not kill, but you're a poet, some kind of genius, so you write about slippery bird guano on a wet road, a truck hydroplaning, cars bursting into flames, a trucker dying of colon cancer long after that fatal accident. Misery and joy must be manipulated then handcuffed together. You publish the deranged thing - your mistake, it's just another aberration of your nervous system. Then you wait for some wiseass to tear it apart, and it serves you right.