Tap Me by Greg Allendorf

like a sugar maple. Break me in,

an oxblood boot; I want it to spurt.

I want tin buckets massy with serum.

I want you to see how, for me,

every raindrop’s a paranoid theorem;

a body bloats in every creek I walk.

There’s a train wreck every time (I think)

a bottle fly dies in Ohio. A fractured

family never formally resets.

The maples hang in woolen fog;

booklice till my vellum hide. It hurts

most when the peacock,

now headless,

finally drops like a plain old pin. See how

I carve my name into a zither’s

oaken shoulder, lace my fingers

through my father’s and dig in.

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Greg Allendorf is a poet and artist living in Missouri. His poetry has most recently appeared in Peripheries (Harvard Center for the Study of World Religions), Carve, and Washington Square Review. His artwork has appeared on the cover of Heavy Feather Review.