Please.

by Kivi Weeks

The word Please is delicate.

On spindly grasshopper legs so easily yanked

From their placed flesh by senseless toddlers.

Please is crystal stemware that might shatter in the undiscerning hand

To whom all wine tastes the same.

Please is naked flesh and salt,

kneaded into the hands like bread dough.

and Please is a throaty cry of crazy eye rolling need

The pig struggling against the butcher’s block

Screaming it again and again as the ax is raised and;