Learning About Lonely Opprobriums

Snatch at that torn rag strip
knotted on the barbed wire gate
Anathematize its faded color:
an olive memory of verdancy -
a reminder that your acrid dust field
without even faded greens left
is crusted over like a sore on the skin.
That rag strip flares, anthropomorphizes
with the ground-stirring wind.
It's taunting now,
and playing tag with your hand.
It's like Jack: nimble, quick, jumping;
Grinning out of your grasp.
Discipline it like a child though.
There's no question it knows better.
It knows it should defy Newton -
should stand stiff in that blighted breeze
and stand tall for that field and the fence,
but it's just stubborn.
You've got to teach it with your brain.
So stop snatching and cut yourself on the wire.
Feed it, bleed into it. Like a leaky nipple,
drip the blood congealing on the very tip of your finger
onto its open smile.
That will show it - teach it -
It will know not to taunt you the next time.
Except, when blood meets its complement,
it turns black. And now the
rag is no longer a reminder of
anything but those cold, lonely moments
when you actually think you have something.