[Trevor Conway]

I renounce the sham romance
that so many have barbed to my flesh,

all these songs, the bland swamp
of drivel set to a perfect pitch.

I am a pulsing fist of muscle,
enticing blood from lungs,

gifting nutrients to nerve and bone,
brain and liver.

Ribs have deemed me worthy of shelter,
and yet, you’ll see me overexposed

in bastard form on cards and walls,
praised in poems like a false prophet.

All I crave
is vagrant blood,

so don’t cite me when talking of love –
attach that accolade to another organ,

and mention me only – if you must –
in doctors’ clinics and hospital beds,

always striving to keep from crying
and, above all, from declarations,

though sometimes, I might admit
there’s a kind of romance in how I work.