A golden shovel with thanks to William Golding
On a good day the pain recedes into the background, somewhere
on the outskirts of my body, past the treeline. It might be just over
the horizon, killing time at a dive bar, or around the
next bend in the highway, no light on darkened
asphalt, headlights barely making a dent. Each wend and curve
is a held breath, a suspension of
the hammer before it falls to strike the
piano string. It seems all the mindfulness in the world
cannot abate this ache, nor the green tea, nor the
acupuncture. I look at opiates like I look at the sun,
never directly, and with a caveman’s mix of awe and
suspicion. I look at the rising moon
like every little death, bringing the hours when I were-
wolf across the landscape of my bed, pain pulling, pulling, pulling.
