You. Burden. You. Un-favorite
child, ruin of your father’s
pride. Labyrinth-dweller,
hide from the hero. Disappear
into rubble. He comes for you
with his hockey stick, his
bottle rockets, his sock full
of pennies. Even now, he is
counting out the bullets. You
poor bastard. Why do you surround
yourself with walls, waiting for
the hero to hurry towards you
with his shotgun, his daggers
sharper than your bull-horns,
sharper even than the broken
rocks you hurl at human shapes
you cannot stomach, you half-
animal, you mama’s boy, you joke.
Robert Campbell’s poems have appeared in Columbia Poetry Review, Ninth Letter, River Styx, and elsewhere. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Murray State University and serves as Reviews Editor at DIALOGIST, an online journal of poetry and art.