(for those struggling and in pain)

It is no easy thing to hold pain.
The sharp, porcupine-y points
pierce your palms, fine threads

of blood embroidering your life line,
and even if you set it down,
trying to shake off the wounds

like a dog trying to dislodge a bee
on its snout, pain will leap again
at you, affix itself like a burr

or turn into a weighty mass,
almost too heavy to lift, though
you do because you have to.

There’s no getting rid of this,
you think, once pain has painted
you in a garish shade, which

oddly, no one else can see.
How can they not? You stand
there with your pierced palms,

the heaviness in your hands,
which by now has seeped through
your pores into your bloodstream

And oh, there’s your heart
tenderized like the poor abalone
he used to de-shell and beat

with a mallet into submission.
As if the dead thing was going
to rise and float away.

Which is what you wish this ache
would do—leave you, find some
other heart to infect.

But if you sit with it, whisper
sweetness into its pointy bits,
with time, pain begins to soften,

and with more kindness becomes
puppy-dog soft in your hands,
leaping joyfully in your heart,

glad to see that you’ve remembered
that it still lives within you. Acknowledge it,
bless it, pat it on its bouncing head,

this pain that’s not going anywhere,
but with time morphs into gentle
remembrance, sending happy snapshots

to your overfull mind—the one once
beloved who has taken up residence
inside, the one with its tongue out,

always ready to deliver a slobbery kiss.

•••

(With thanks to Skooby’s people, Pamela and Dave, always gracious hosts…
along with their dogs!)