Pieces of Agony
Reason pays attention with one ear.
Small voices want to speak
with thick lips; want to plead, like men
on death row, for their lives.
They pilfer strength from weary sinew
I am so sorry. Please believe me.
It was never my intention to cause pain,
emerges stinking like yesterday's vomit
on a road trip. Crawls then, slowly
off misery's face, as if it is a clot
surfacing from treachery's scab.
Sorry is something you say when you
accidentally kick a dog, or knock a bucket,
Sitting in silence, an imbecile urinating
in shame's underwear, I think, Yes,
it’s what you say if you forget a name,
or step on someone’s shoe.
Onion skins of complexity carve
letters into wooden air between us.
It wants to write itself into meat of memory.
What is a word? Frailty’s use of language
becomes a demonstration of emotion,
a piece of agony waiting for rain to fall,
to bleed darkness down windowpanes. |