13thWR

DEAD END FRIEND

Dead end alley.
Inside-shadows.
Surrounding buildings-mountains
In the alley, in the dark,
someone curses.
In the alley, in the dark
someone has nowhere to go.
Where alley meets sidewalk
someone's friend keeps vigil,
so thus confined within
someone can hurt no stranger.
Within,
a garbage can
smashes the wall.
Within
only loud sounds,
but no clear vision
in such deep shadows.
At the edge of the alley,
the sentinel looks tired.
"He'll get over it,"
a whisper
under the crashes and curses.
"He'll get over it, always has.
Let him be. Let us be."
Dead end alley.
Just out of the shadow,
someone's friend keeps a tired vigil.

HEALING ITCH

To me it is the:

moan of a neuron, soft sob of a wound
dampened pain, incompetent M.D. with the wrong diagnosis.
It's a scab insisting on undoing itself,
demanding a fingernail to pull away the healing sheets of skin,
compelling discomfort to turn back into pain.

Or, worst of all, it could be
a cruel deceiver if a limb has been cut,
the body's dying argument that it's still whole.

The sharp pain of cleaving has dulled but I still ache,
itch for your touch; I reach for the phone.

An itch:
a test of mettle, a corporeal dare
to hold back from hearing your voice.
Inaction is the boldest therapy.
Wait, wait for the drying scab to flake and the nerve to heal,
then the body will be as it was before,
except the scars.

- Richard Fein