Beetle Wife

[Richard]

Hey wordgobbler,
I liked some of the imagery in your poem. It definitely captured the viciousness and devastation of domestic violence. My biggest suggestion for your poem would be to add a line or two at the beginning or the end, so it is clearer that you are making a connection to domestic violence. I'll explain more below:

( I wrote this poem about an incident of domestic violence I witnessed a few months ago that left me traumatized, I am comparing the violence to when boys smash bugs ) -I don't think you need this at the start of the poem. Information like this takes away from the poem, and that isn't fair to the poem. If the information in this intro is important, it should be included in the poem some way.

beetle wife. smash her with thumbs and -I would drop "beetle wife" from this line. It's enough that it is the title.
watch red ooze onto the skin. lick it off 
if you want, tastes like summer. -This line and the previous line bother me, but in a good way. It's a potent image.
antennas burned, shrinking like matchsticks -This is a wonderful simile. It creates a interesting image in my mind.
wings ripped off and blown away with breath 

I am reminded of the meat market, plastic 
baskets full of raw meat bathed in blood 
the silence sprawls across us / my mouth is stunned -Is the slash here supposed to be there or is "my mouth is stunned" supposed to be its own line?

Overall, I think you got a good start here. You just need to revise this poem, so your connection to the trauma caused by domestic violence is clearer.

Keep writing,
Richard