Nine Pound Sledge Poem by richard ilnicki

With the kinetic force of a nine pound sledge
she strikes my chest. This sudden blow from nowhere
against my protective ribcage
fractures my thought processes.
It drives innocent nails into the palms of my love
puncturing my heart with splintered chords of hate.
The striated muscles of my limbs go soft; embarrassed,
they become limp, emasculated,
a pathetic atrophied excuse of a man.

Pierced and shocked by this unpleasant surprise
I experience a prolapse and begin to bleed.
My chest heaves in silent opposition
to this forced regurgitation,
and I protest
the vitriole of her ambush.

Deaf to my plea she puts the sledge down
and picks up a Stryker saw,
a saw designed to cut through bone
with minimal damage to the underlying soft tissue.

She mercifully opens me
splitting the wishbone into two unequal parts
with the dexterity of a graduate in residence.
She sees, of course, that i have hemorrhaged.
So she siphons off the blood
then casually removes my will to live
with a rusty clawhammer. Smiling ear to ear

and with innocent blood on her hands and lips
she nonchalantly walks away
dragging her nine pound sledge with her.