for Poetry Month

There are moments where
You stomp through my brain
Felt-tipped crow-wing pens
Slash through rice-paper walls

Cow-eyes. Deer-eyes.
Scary-eyes that
Shifted back and forth

Forth and back and forth
Until I toppled
Into backwards world
Hung down-side upward.

Where baby dolls
Scared me, stared me
Down into corners

And the men draped in
Mexican metal
Called, held me until
I bled.

S. Squires