Intentions

There must be a bone caught
between my heart and spine.
If only I could cough it up,
like this place for which I did not ask,
but this splintered ivory lodges,
rigid, crippling love.
Shall I take a fork
and knife,
cut it out, eat it, so it
dissolves within a dark, caustic
acid?  Like I wish I could with
hapless  man  words
tossed with as much meaning as
a horseshoe that circles and clanks about my heart .
I prefer to hurl myself, alone, over unstable ledges, or wait for
those ledges to buckle beneath
me.  At least I’d be falling within
my own logic, no bone piercing, male
trickery, that extended hand
which when gripped
disappears into thin air.


* Author of the novel When the Ugly Comes, Carmen Eichman earned her Masters Degree in Creative Writing & Literature from Kansas State University and is now an Assistant Professor of English and Honors Chair, living in North Carolina. Eichman’s poetry has appeared in A Little Poetry, All Things Girl, The Argotist Online, Subtle Tea, Invisible Ink, The Dan River Review, Borderline, Thick with Conviction, and Contemporary American Voices to name a few. She is currently at work on her fourth novel and third collection of poetry.