VARIATIONS ON A PHYSICAL PAIN ❋ August Smith

1.

I pull my shirt over a disobedient thing.
There are people worse off in this world,
yes I know, but in my bathroom I stand alone
as the vortex of my pities.

I still have to put on my pants.

2.

Think of those cut-away diagrams
of the human body
on pamphlets and posters about disease,
lying flat and unsmiling
clean and well-lit and plainly labeled,
no hint of that gore
we have crammed inside.

3.

Oh! hello! and good morning, Pain.
Already here to ruin my Sunday?
We can at least work together.
I’ll fire up that smoky engine of self-hatred,
pull up WebMD on my phone,
and you just go right ahead
and burrow.

4.

I got these dark moons under my wool cloak.
I’m going to travel somewhere far away
and pay a masked man to cut them out
beneath the secrecy of marble doors
and aggressively yellow waiting rooms.

I stop at Walmart to buy some fruit,
wonder how many others bear these dark moons.