HISS THIS
JCD Kerwin

And there it goes:
my eye twitch,
my side stitch;
the way my tongue splits
open into a serpent’s,
spitting poison onto jerks.
The way my blood boils,
how this lashing tail coils,
and claws that scrape the walls
of my graying prison.
If I’m kept this way,
I’ll likely go insane;
I’ll gnash and munch
and bite and crunch
the hand that reaches in my cage.

(October 2014)