Matt Forrest Esenwine

TO THE ACCUSED

You didn't cut deep enough.

Flesh separated from flesh,
muscle from sinewy muscle,
bone from bone,
but like the scarred tamarack
out front
branded with ugly etchings
of names
and hearts
as old as you and I,
death does not come easily.

You didn't cut deep enough.

The taste of iron
red, salty
still wakes me
while I try in vain
each day
to ignore the stench of that night,
of Marlboro Lights
and urine
and hibiscus.
Through a steel-blade memory
forged from your hand,
through blazing pain
of wounds and tears,

I think of you
sitting there now
caged between concrete and steel,
sunrise and sundown,
wires and weapons,
with nothing to remember
but an old tamarack,
the taste of iron,
and the stench of Marlboro Lights
and urine
and hibiscus.

And I hate that I wonder why

you didn't cut deep enough.


Matt reads "To the Accused":



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Matt confesses: "There are two types of pain: physical as well as emotional. I thought it might be interesting to examine the turmoil going through the mind of this particular victim."

Voiceover artist and commercial copy writer MATT FORREST ESENWINE has had several poems published in various independent collections around the U.S., including The Henniker Review, Metamorphosis, the Tall Grass Writers Guild's "Seasons of Change," Assisi: Journal of Arts & Letters, and the Licking River Review, among others. In 2012, his poem, "Apple-Picking," was nominated by the Young Adult Review Network (YARN) for a Pushcart Prize. Matt lives in Warner, New Hampshire, and is currently working on several children's book manuscripts.