Poetry gives me the best kind of stomachache. A brewing storm for breakfast. Or perhaps a flock of migratory geese. It dwells in the throat as a lump that aches. I can’t bring myself to swallow it, though, to simply rid myself of what clogs the airway. I know it’ll burn, acid magic. So I just let it sit there, simmering in itself, arrogant as an heir of my own imagination.
Poetry wounds me. Calls to mind lives and names I have bloodied. Sheds tissue and then wipes my hands of the evidence. It clots. It stings, that raw ache. There is no bandage big enough. Leaves me without a verdict.
Poetry, you are what stops my heart and what resuscitates it. You weaken my knees, ground them in prayer, bruise and batter them. You floor the soul right out of my body; you make it speak.
