Exit Wounds

Things always change in ways that can't be anticipated

Photo by Anastasiya Romanova on Unsplash

I wasn’t watching when the trees
started creeping toward the river
stark shapes in the sharp morning light
darkness bleeding from their trunks
shadows so black stars still flickered inside
and I imagined myself tumbling
into the black, deep black

I wasn’t watching when the world
missed a turn, and life
took out her sharp knives
a slice of sour cut close to the skin
stale air just enough for one
and only a lump of blue clay to plug
the exit wounds in the soul

I feel a quiet ache now
for the calm of days passed
but am left to stand firm in the moment
as the sharp light falls heavy at my feet
and the blades gleam and glisten
I will be ready for them

But I know of course,
No one ever is
No one can be

---

The future path is always changing. And now we are in the Midwest for a while where the elevation is lower and the oxygen is thicker. A sudden event and diagnosis, and our lives changed—something we never saw coming, the world shifting beneath our feet. But lest I leave the wrong impression, our situation is not as dire as the poem suggests. Onward.

---