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The colour of pain
Bulging walls, stairs spiralling into themselves,
leading nowhere. Blinding throbs. Nothing exists
but what goes on in the body. Nodes, lines of radiation,
of wandering. Intensifyings. Transient relief.
What I am thickens into what hurts: the point where.
Not further. Not beyond. Not over there: here. And here.
I show it to the no-one there. Roads have long been leading
into the impossible’s dark. All the senses turn inward, draw
thick charts, register. No safety, no hinterland is left.
With eyes closed I trace the wires that transmit
messages of pain. You’ll be long tortured
before you die; you’ll beg for a quicker death.
On the top where sounds break off a cat’s
mottled nape and back appears, then passes out of sight.