Ever

 

EVER ~

 

He who would search for pearls must dive below.

                                    John Dryden

 

Ever had a pain so deep

in between the private places

right where the left & right side

join? It makes me

think this is how stretched skin

feels, a new velum waiting to feel

paint.  I feel it, feel it fearful,

feel it being so new the ache

doesn’t know where to center

itself so it rests there where the ribs

 

meet each other & now that

they’re there they will never cease being

unseparated.  Consider this:

twins who in utero

& unbeknownst to their mother

form a pact and are born

keeping that pact intact sharing the one

kidney or lung or the one

unamputatable organ

 

beneath the bone housing.

All those molecules no one

can know & not only molecules

but elements & the underneath

of flesh so intimate a place

even the surgeon, pealing it

 

away to make one finally into two

stops utterly, catches a sob

and doesn’t know how

the incision should begin

or for that matter how

on earth she’ll be able

to go on once the cut begins.