dissolving friendly on the tongue first
like bits of crystallized sugar
lozenges of sharp words flung
when one is young
slip down the mouth and come full rest
at perfect bulls-eyes just inside the chest
preparing a way for further knives
flipped across rooms
to exactly where the worst of wounds reside
down a toddler’s cotton-candy pink mouth
how unkind syllables do spin in early
and slash red as a sore throat
to where
even the repairing stitches must be sewn up jagged
from those harsh verbs, the pointed tips
leaving behind unmended gash lines black as railroad tracks
right across a stretch of skin
located just below the defenselessness of childhood collarbones
then—that familiar rip much like the renting of sheets
seams opening first to a drip next a puddle
which will forever gather as sticky sweet and unwelcome
as a caress of your own mother’s blood
