I beheaded a word
in trying to modify it for the better:
A sudden detachment of a letter-limb.
A good intention ending in
orthographic disaster.

The ‘v’, shocked,
severed with the presence of a ‘p’,
a bilabial blade,
stares at the rest of its mutated corpse: ‘iolence’.

Ticking like a death knell,
the cursor hovers over
the consonantal carnage:
‘vpiolence’ .

The sentence grieves.

Christy Callaway-Gale