OPERATION

They don't call them wars anymore. 
They're operations. Something sick 
must be radically healed to restore 
proper functioning of the neoglobal body. 
Or a cancer, metastisized from
slums and ghettos and prison cells 
must be excised before it spreads 
its feeble cellular cries for justice 
to the lipid tissues of empire.

Unanaesthetized, the patient writhes 
and clamps on the bullet and the boot 
shoved in its mouth, pinned in gang rape grip, 
a radiating stain of pain, a napalm flash 
that flowers straight to the brain, 
the synaptic snap of severed nerves, 
cringing ends screaming like random missiles
to the exposed root of hearts and homes.

Now, in swaggers the cowboy surgeon, 
crude, breath reeking, hiding 
behind a mask, hands shaking, 
death metal blaring, sweating 
over his labors, his fingers fidgeting 
on the instruments like triggers. 

He reaches in and grabs whatever 
his slickened gloved hands can grip, 
deep into the cracked rib gape 
and lifts out a beating heart, 
America's heart, 
and drops it to the floor.


© 2005 by Richard W. Todd

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