Pain stands unchallenged

beneath the body's grey canvas –

fieldwise, battle-ready – shrill

The rain's slow march across the wasteland

dismantles all orders of turn,

bestows sameness before the law

and a careless violence,

while Jorge Luis Borges' The Book of Sand

hisses and sparks

in the aftertaste of silent tongues

Pain's red command is a breathless beacon

in a body gone dark,

as I come to dwell within a withered jackal

with scorched eyes,

far from waterholes and forests

All numbers fold into 1

The now tilts over the rim

The only thought is angular, raw,

uncarved