I am never
what is needed
a hammer where
a shovel’s needed

as a thing
I am an obstacle
a broken tree branch
in the road obstacle

but I am not
a hugs and kisses human
a beloved,
singing praises human

a rag doll
with brown eyes
torn to pieces by
hard green eyes

desperate to consume
this transcendency
as a blue eyed
butterfly, I transcend

Tamara Fricke is the 2010 co-winner of the Gertrude Claytor Award of the Academy of American Poets and is previously published by The Lyon Review, Meat for Tea, Attack Bear Press Poetry Vending Machine, Whisper and the Roar, We Will Not Be Silenced, and has been included in a number of compilations.  Her poetry chapbook Our Requiem was released in 2014.  She lives in Springfield, MA, with an ungrateful cat, where she writes grants professionally.