Charley Horse Poem by Kevin Patrick

Its half past 12: 00 in the crow's plumage dawn
and I've been sitting here since before 9: 00,
with legs crossed eyed in snaked figure eights
course I'm paying for it now. My feet implode
with a migraine of a guillotine, and I shake
it off, but they feel like the star of a wake;
Charley Horse is its name like a gift of mafia shoes.
and my cat sits on the ledge: her glare says it all.


But who could cruelly diminish an animals name
There's no horse and there's no charley
its just crushed nerves and prelude of age
when the body becomes weighed by stones
It should be drunken bones or muscle ulcers
Not the scapegoat for a poor beast of burden.
So I pull the socks to rub my chubby feet
but all I feel is the gravity of bones




It won't be long until pain ends
Just wait until your last breath