The First Time

It’s when you finally feel
the ax sink in.
And it seems like years have passed as you have been here,
and they might have,
and you’re still swinging away, as if
you have been forced to do it.
And then, there’s that sound of fibers
splitting, and your ears turn on like the animal you are,
where all before it was just
ungratifying swipes, banked off, ramming the blade
into holes in the air, hammering,
hammering. Boring. When will it end?
And it happens,
it works,
this little secret of glee nature, a bee in the hole of a flower,
it lets you in, it releases something small;
it smiles at you. You marvel at its
suddenness. You really almost cry. And when you remove it,
slide it out from the flesh of
time, and the flesh of your own body,
and the deep
torso
of monotony’s cadaver,
the blade is dripping with honey.
And the ants crawl into your
momentarily
overgrown pajamas.