MAN
SEEKING
To a man seeking to wander the desert a
hundred years blind and parched, immune
to suffering but filled as much with sorrow as
grief, little things scratch - the bug under
toe, the beetle that hangs on a native's
eyelid, the caked brown something on
the mouthpiece of that last canteen.
Oh, never again. Not homeward, but
bound instead for a silence lachrymose.
The sort of tears a Jesus would cry from
his pores; a sweat red, like blood, and a
putrid spittle, foaming and rank like old
vomit. I know all of those things, yes,
having been here a very long time.
Not yet a hundred years, but long
enough anyway that it's no longer,
no longer by any means, sublime.
So hold your religion, and stop all
your crying. I have been here by
choice, and the penance is mine.
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