With Pain

-after Audre Lorde

Speed as fast as one can, devour the miles

where soft land, dark sea meet, never, ever

look back to the shoreline is how we

evade it. The deep end of the pool where

gravity upends, one settles weightless,

becalmed is how we succumb to it. Bring

it finger food snacks, pastry dainties, pink

shrimp canapes, stuff its wide-open mouth

with its own tongue into choking, numb-blind

oblivion is how we deal with it.

Chant. Sing. Scream. Loud, rolling rumbles channeled

from stars, wind, lightning, the universe’s

bathe-bright lights that leave us cleansed, a moments

exaltation is how we transcend it.