By: Emeniano Acain Somoza, Jr.

That you so unsparingly issue
In cups of blighting blows

Laced with acid the corrosive breathe
Of aphids on petals of hope quivering

On cusps between one secret longing
To another – these sick little Hannibals,

How they latch on the doorknobs, nipples
Of these all my throbbing unknowables?

Or, if you can tell me please in what copious
More ways  can the heart be bothered too

To listen to the dying voices, of words snuffed
Out of a poem’s frame, unwelcomed

The hairy surprise
Of Kafka’s cockroach?