When All We Give Was Pain Poem by John Courtney

I visit me, average age, with head
set aside so that the iris charms
her gardener. An ancient teenager
of vision is no more than first
kiss on low wings. In rings of
smoke I tend sunbeams who
pursue carpet fibers on
neglected pale tides,
failing to house
a summer wheel,
my mother has
left me for
work.

This angers the young heart, but is
not my real head. That without
a summer wheel the single blade
of flesh would rather flank than
feed her child is to me a game
of mirrors. To understand the
pasture I must deduct
the wanton traffic
brushing my hair,
chewed through alley fence
and little girl face,
spitting back the
monotone
eye.

To guess that no fruit is hunger
is to carve the sky of light. To
set out, head aside, is to finally
visit me and draw broken nights
from a lamp-holder.

I visit,
at the end, my memory,
so that her child can look up
from its needful day, from carpet
fibers landing on my face, from the
pale tides washing us away. To leave me
alone here on a summer wheel is to visit you,
to go with you, forever to work, is to put my head
back on and lead the iris from its luxurious jail of pleasure.