From the back of the throat, phlegm or poem,
what we cough up is the same. Something hard

we find we cannot choke down. Hard, irksome
pain, you have become much like a barnyard

squeal, skin flick groan, slaughterhouse yap; the marred
bit of the song we skip over in haste.

Anything than to listen to those scarred
voices sing. Better to escape shame faced,

guts a pitapat, than to stay debased
by the things we have no control over.

Here is my throat, my O of mouth, the taste
of wind rising up, filling the puncture

wound of my chest; gun shot like doors, a new
doorway hole that the dark wind whispers through.