Blue veins
printed on this white, filmy page
are completely unassuming.
They sit under the paper pulp
keeping your work’s body in order,
without opinions about its physicality.
Suddenly, a circle here, “X”
marks the spot there, and dotted
lines that assert the opinion,
“You need to be arranged,
then sewn up, differently.
Your lines don’t look good anymore.”
Nip and tuck, nip and tuck,
the bloody ink flows
out from the papery flesh until the original
form is almost unrecognizable. The sheet
is thrown back, operation over.
Scrubbing off your stained hands,
you can finally say the writing is perfect.
Euphemism Campus Box 5555 Illinois State University Normal, IL 61790