Experience

--Ace Boggess

Purple eye, jaundice-flecked, swelling

after another timber fist—different fist,

same blessing. Church of Holy Suffering.

Praise my hurt, weakness, want.

Waves broke against the shoreline of my cheeks.

Didn’t desire this; sometimes I deserved it.

A careless word, calculated error,

rage spontaneous as a gas blast.

All at once, uncalled for but foreseeable.

Like most men, I’ve taken beatings,

worn the silver medal proudly.

My hands don’t launch their javelins.

They flutter lightly like butterflies

landing sideways on a brittle leaf, a rose.