Shocking how a shock to muscles, to brawn,
sinew and thew, can ruin me. Hellfire

in the limbs. Rust in the nerves. Pinched neuron
and all at once my head has gone haywire.

Skull pain. Dull brain. All over what? A sprain.
Something inside. A railroad spike jutting

from my chest would be easier. Cocaine
and dime-store morphine won’t dull this throbbing.

My world of muck fuck (sludge boys and goo girls)
is gone, though honorable disembowelment

still holds its appeal. Anything to blur
what I must endure, what rises and swirls

inside me. Pain is a low-down varmint,
a touch divine, a great equalizer.