if poems can’t protect you, you better learn to throw a punch by Steve Calamars

gorilla sunshine
pounds my
skin-shell

i drag a 300-pound
sled across the asphalt
out back behind
the gym

my calves feel
like cinder-blocks
my thighs tree-trunks

because words mean
little in the face of
fists and muscle

pencil-necks and
chicken-legs maybe
more often than not
produce poems

but fundamentally
the world doesn’t
give a shit about syllables
scrawled across a
sheet of paper

it only respects
a strong back and
monstrous forearms

sometimes not even that

so i pull this sled
across the asphalt

my heart pumping
ether thru my lungs

and pick up my pen
with the strain of
a dead-lift

and try to break your
jaw with the weight of
my words

the way i would with
my fists if you were
here right now—