Down out of the raftered dark the wasp
stabbed hard above my collarbone,
but that is not pain,
the clenching heart.
I lifted stone from clay,
loaded the truck until my palms
itched and my fingers swelled and my feet
filled my boots; I turned my ring
off while I could, lips going hard,
but that is not pain.
I steered for home tight and burning,
considered the decades of my rough carpentry,
lay on the floor in the empty farmhouse,
opened my clothes under the fever rooms,
touch a conflagration – desire is a piston,
but that is not pain.
I drifted into the earth's faint moan.
I awoke cool in the midst of glittering sin.
I guessed myself alone,
but that is nothing.
.
