Call me by another name.
Call me waspish,
or boyish,
or fountain-mouthed.
Prate about the crooked,
curved curls of my red-ribbon tongue.
Whisper myths down spidered-ice hallways
about the melted wax love games
fixed between dust-dressed candlesticks,
and the unfaithful rumors
of wine-stained table cloths.

Call me by another name.
Call me button-eyed,
and hollow,
and brittle-garden crucified;
Bind my face with burlap
and replace my spine with
a wood-splintering post;
dry my veins gold
so that my flannel fetters in
the tornado-dry breath
of fraying hay.
I'll fight off autumn winds and
the gossip of crows.

Don't fuse my footsteps to the echos
of Lightning Bearers and Stilt-legged Shadows;
Fasten my shoelaces to the
anchor dreams of drowning cannonballs
where I will only spell stories
with the sharp skin of coral reefs.
Call me by another name.
Call me typewriter-toothed,
or backwash,
or eight-legged.
Just prescribe me a name
that I can live up to.