Firing Squad Or Peanut Butter
They’re just words, after all,
ink pressed into pulp,
or air spat from split lips.
So why concern yourself
with cunt or radish, their difference
consonants, vowels.
Tricycle or grenade, does it matter
which word a child plays with?
Rape, lump, castrate, flay,
lynch, malignant, gouge, extinct
harmless as slugs
or as nuclear fission.
—Cathy Carlisi
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Previously published by West Branch