Hacker's Complaint to Blind Hugh of Onan

Angel's Flight, Vol. 2.1 (1977)

Terry Phillips

I am the crippled boy.
I have the lagging foot and the jerking knee.
You have fixed your teeth in my lame heart
and your lips never touch the meat.
Your smile cut from Cosmo with a razor
betrays no one,
offends no one,
pleases no one;
it is inert
as the polished enamel of your incisors.

I play with deep subjects
cached in my pockets.
In the cloister of my bedroom
I have hidden my marbles behind the socket facing.
They are inert
as the lead scales that skin your heart.
You, daughter of the bunny hutch and society's page,
come to me,
come in the waking day
and I will know you.
No vow need rob us of love, nor tender caress
wake us from our viscous dreaming, nor genuine embrace
hold us from our fond-handed good-night, sweet lady.

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