PIRANHAS

Bits of flesh and bone

Swirl madly

Around me.

I am untouched,

But not unharmed.

Soon it will settle

To be played out again;

Two matching piranhas

In a rhythmic dance

As though spontaneous

And always new;

Thrashing the same way

Year after year.

 

This is the tank

In which I was born.

Sixty years amidst

Swirling and gnawing.

Each time, to them,

A surprise event,

Fresh reason for attack.

While dark fare I might become

There is, for me,

No fear.

I am not targeted

Nor am I safe.

 

I swim in the blood
Of my dearest ones each day

And nothing I do or say

Alters our environment.

I see the gore, I hear the tearing

I smell the death that does not die;

But I will not open my mouth to

Taste the poison

Nor will I swallow the swill.

So hard to be silent

And not be heard;

To speak and not be heeded;

For nothing, nothing,

Changes the tank.

My safe place?

Insanity.

My offering to the

Unsatisfied fiends:

Brain matter,

Sliced in two.

 

 

Kristin Noel Stabb

January 9, 2011

Amarillo, Texas