The Poetry of Mark Daniel Milbocker 
Poison Arrow

You offered a kind-hearted observation
broke the needle off the ineffables
pierced my remodeled dehiscence 
with feathered blades leaving no tear

I watch the slow collision enter
captured by my own paralysis of
incredulity spiraling in ever tighter orbits
as the electrocution cascades over
the goose bump skin you were supposed
to kiss and cherish with adoration

Sudden arteries exhale to gaping tunnels
atmosphere floods the sanctum in desecration
as flashbacks wave angry fingers at small eyes
esteem as evanescent as the soft morning naivete

I climb the condescension to my empty treehouse
helpless to escape the edge dangling catatonia

Unable to pull apart serrated pincers or 
extract the atter sinking to my naked profundity

The stain spreads as I strangle my rationalizations
desparately tipping the gilded mirrors askew

Watching the timbers burn to weightless vertebrae
happiness flittering beyond fleshless fingers

Calm acceptance dawns upon rendered bedsheets lost
in the swarm of midnight fever tears laid empty

You were unaware of how fallen was a careless word
how resonantly it would conjure the buried into
fresh and blood to unzip what sutures could not hold
and send into fibrillation for another forty years
the lamb of no more lion chances

I was unaware my reactor cooling vent was so exposed
to the errant womprat laser cannon of someone fearing
too few years remained to live to dispense all the 
wisdom at once and so pulled an unaimed trigger 
and walked away from the smoking residue

We once intermingled our hottub orphan tales 
wallowing in the elation of finding the unmillioned one
but twenty years later the water is so cold
sold untold across the silver of our mirror
two figures forever lost to grecian urnity
■





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