A Pulmonary Disease Poem by Mark Heathcote

Words, like a pulmonary disease
can never soothe my heart
like scalpels in the wrong hands
they are lethal weapons with a deadly garb.
But occasionally my lungs are lifted.
And butterfly wings hover on the air.
And like darts hit a bulls-eye centre square.

In the right hands, words they are
electric, fantastic, bombastic, sarcastic
each syllabic footnote walks across my soul.
Just like footprints, smoothed over.
They are digested, like a well-made profiterole.
My hunger for these words never wanes.
I guess that's why I devour quatrains.