OW! Poem by Judith Herzberg

Could there be such a thing, a law
for the conservation of pain,
so that if we fight it here,
someone somewhere will be hurt
worse than the sound of ow?

Or does pain, like energy
(sorry, analogy), transform itself
not into heat, but somehow
into a kind of freeze
worse than the sound of ow?

Or could it be the pain we drive out
takes on a different form,
unlaughed, unsung, disavowed,
stiffens our pain-thirsty bodies
aching for the sound of ow?