TO FOUND SCISSORS (an ode, a poem)

In response to Strunny's comment on the last post, I must confess that when I listed those things I've lost or would like to lose, it was mostly part of an exercise for my poetry class. Out of the list, I was to compose a poem... here's the result, which actually is missing one of the items -- but I think works without it.


TO FOUND SCISSORS

Delegate voice to weight:
another blunder in the “nuisance” of vanity.
For its sake avoid
eye-contact, speech-acts soliciting
clamorous objections and sunburnt cheeks; resolve
to swallow till bitter swells
spew
from ears against thick-walled rooms,
their smell of ants dislocating acquaintance
from friendship: perpetual unease.

Baby,
whose genitals and pierced
ears protected with pink cloth
I, nevertheless, called her “Boy ” Suppressed
connections to that gender-sex trump.
Then dial-up, vibrating connection–altogether
cushion-wedged phones–failed.
Even two tins–generous
popcorn tins–tied with dental floss
fail when floss finishes unfound. Revel in this.

Ode: to ease, confidence; to entire
conversations cut by static-lined-haze
where laughing hardens into crumbs,
and wash-quarters. The un-choice
choice to stifle society’s want for paint-on
eyes, lips, and lids. Even clothing
suns [or masks] self, that unmarked
mark, which must interest you
beneath denial. There, with found scissors
un-stapling all sense of relation.