The Hurt Sonnet
BY CASEY THAYER
Dark days when I awaken so I slump
back to the swamp of his armpit, a whit
from the arachnid he inked to the stump
that’s left. So close to the vestige of it,
the danger he’s a reliquary of:
tattooed noose to venerate the fist
of a slug buried still in his butt above
a white cross for the men he didn’t miss.
If only I could strip off the black map
I sleep against and be his liniment,
gloss over the explosion, the mishap
phantom he feels in a forearm itch.
He won’t leave the long tale his tattoos read
for me, so I amend the story.
Source: Poetry (November 2012)
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