CUTTING KEYS
Sad does not begin to describe the moods
I carried over my shoulder or rolled uphill
I was not ready to understand
my imagination held the keys of hope,
doggedly dragging downhill skis across the ploughed fields.
There were no hills in a prairie town, not ours
Not anyones, my relatives taunting me jeering at my interests
Give me a book, balls I cannot throw far enough
To escape the gravity that pounds me to the ground
Once fallen, I feel my cousins kneeling on my back
Bitter boy hard learning spitting dirt left
To my heavy breathing I get up again and again
Tiresome it’s a wonder how often this game
Mantles my shoulders bends my spine
Now I am a crooked man damned
To body work ongoing, my brain
Threatens giving out well before
Another joint is replaced. I fall
And I fall and I fall three times
I rise, abhor all religions yet
I scream in its brick passageways
While echo releases her stays.