Linden Van Wert

Anger                                                   

Yes, I see
the hot red cat in you,
your jarring steps,
the knotted muscle
of your cheek,
the way your underline crosses
paper—a scalpel
drawing black beads of ink
into a cut-like mark—
all tell me it is there.

Perhaps when small,
it licked you,
and you took it in?

Do you fear it?
Are you afraid to show your pleasure  
when it acts with searing fire?         
And what can you be giving it
to stoke such feral power?     
What unholy harvest dug       
what acid odors prick
what juices meet its lips
and from what fruit or meat
unfound in all the stores?

You turn away
so I should not see
its claws reach through your flesh
toward me.
Has thus the tool
become the master?

Linden Van Wert, born in Massachusetts, worked in New York as a book designer and proofreader, became a mother in Florida and is now a teacher in California. Her work has been published or soon to be seen in Orchards Poetry, California Quarterly.