Unwanted By: Sarah Gamutan Poem by Sarah Gamutan

I aimed to assemble a puzzle which trusted its
strength on a missing piece. A day of work
entitled one part of the boat which needed

the paddle. That image contained pieces
which had to cheat, intentionally cut their
bodies in half so they'd become belittled and
missing. I knew when I assembled them all;

they wiggled, juggled and jumbled from the
table so I kept looking for their last piece.
But they just didn't want to be completed.

They felt better being unassembled, left
behind in wooden altars, in a huge box which
contained their treacherous faces. They were
uncooperative that I looked for them elsewhere-

where they probably ditched their fellow pieces,
where they knew they weren't recognized as crabs
who pulled down each other from the ladder. I knew
they were embodied with pricky stingy hurtful hands.