It Won'T Hurt A Bit Poem by Terri Witek

The economy of this Sebastian's in the arrows:
they've stopped at the contoured edge of flesh
as if Durer meant to martyr someone else

but found his burin buried in a man
already dead, his wrists cuffed to a tree,
limbs limp but furred with fine dark hairs.

To these he's added four feathered shafts
like pegs a curious passerby might climb
toward what—some swaying yellow apples?

The whole scene's a creepy triumph of misuse
but if by this some pain has been avoided
we're as fierce to stay as the burnished sky

through which more arrows carom as if
there's just one trick, and it's repeatable.