The Palm Of My Hand by Bruce McRae

Render unto Caesar, sayeth the taxman,

his face like a final demand,

his face like a stormy Monday morning.

Like a door kicked in.

Your name is underscored in red,

thus spaketh the taxman, his jaw clenched

like a fist, like a knotted rope of hair.

His words were spit and bitten.

Discomfited, for want of another term,

I examined closely the holes in my hands.

My mind wandered childhood’s summers.

I lay in the tall grass and surrendered sweetly.

Bruce McRae, a Canadian musician currently residing on Salt Spring Island BC, is a multiple Pushcart nominee with over 1,600 poems published internationally in magazines such as Poetry, Rattle and the North American Review. His books are ‘The So-Called Sonnets’ (Silenced Press); ‘An Unbecoming Fit Of Frenzy’; (Cawing Crow Press); ‘Like As If’ (Pski’s Porch); ‘Hearsay’ (The Poet’s Haven).