Joseph Crowe Poetry

You touched the wound I didn’t show,

found it with your probing hands.

Your finger poked it and it wept

words diluted, dripping, lost.

You only saw this clumsy drainage,

not the constant throbbing center.

Now you see: coagulated fear

answering so many questions.

Where does my energy go?

Why do I slouch away from the world?

You see why I hid it under

a thick gauze of apologies.

This thing ripped wide by every shock

shrinks beneath your steady touch.

So take your needle and your thread.

Ignore its cries of protest; stitch it up.

For it has lived enough, seen the world.

Time to close its wet, red eye forever.