Dave Bonta's "Misconstrued" is a short, strange poem about mishearing, and about how that mishearing shapes who we think we are. The opening line, "ay rose," looks like a fragment of a word or a sound that has lost its shape, and the next line calls it "a poor music." Something is calling to the speakers, but it calls them "by wrong names." The title fits: nothing quite lands as it was meant.
The third stanza turns inward. "We saw ourselves / reflecting in rust" suggests a dull, decayed mirror, so even self-recognition is blurry and worn. The last two lines are the most unsettling. People who "hear ill news" then "find some gizzard," which I read as grabbing at something raw and bodily, perhaps a gut-level reaction or a scrap of meaning, in place of clear understanding.
The mood is uneasy and bleak, with a little dark humor in the odd, earthy word choices. The speaker seems resigned more than angry.