A Rape Of Gifts

how could you

pluck the poetry 

from my head

like a bit of candy from a bowl?

sing the music

out of my mouth

before my voice

had found the words?

i called you "sister"
and my arms opened to you
you reached out to me,
but only to take.

you are insubstantial

i know you.

the faintest breeze

would scatter 

all of your flash and glamour
to make a shimmering wind.

i know where you come from,
for i passed through that place long ago.

i feel robbed

and wounded anyway - 

bereft, 

at the loss of verse

the visions i shared with you

you took for your own

you desecrated them

limited the potential

stifled the kinetic

i beat out the rhythm

and you stole the rhyme

but got the metering all wrong

your dance is discordant
and false
an ungainly Frankenstein built
of other peoples' poetry