Migraine III
the power of the visible
is the invisible, even where
no tree of freedom grows,
so-called brute courage knows.
Marianne Moore
“He “Digestheth Hard Yron”"
Maybe today abating finds its way
to the other side of the brain,
maybe it’s left the temple entirely
and will genuflect to the back of the head
where the bone seems keenest to
resist a second blow you know
how in the dark and walking by
a guy might swing coward high
and late (in baseball it would
fly foul and he'd take to the box again
and wait for the face to make it-
self clean between shoulders/hips.
The light’s poor though and watery as a rain
that takes over the way a visiting Lord may
when the true Lord’s a week in the highlands
hoping to spot that stag. It’s best
going slow to the blur the way it does
to wait it out to take it to the knee
and maybe not turn around at all
to see who threw it who didn’t
have the balls to step out
before the rain came to say “hey, let’s
have it,” and hold their left hand
(bat’s in the other) palm up
casual. Almost friends. It could’ve been
different. If he’d asked. If he didn’t
wait till that head passed by, if,
(because this is a migraine remember) they
sat down like old friends who hadn’t seen
each other for years and years, friends
who left clasping hands, who despite no
calls, no texts, no “stopping by on my
way through” will smooth every ripple
over, anticipate it even, the way any great
medic might in the late of night seeing two
shadows on the street, who will
intervene, mediate, before he has to lift
the face off the pavement, anticipating, the pain
not arriving yet but soon, the mugger
running off mumbling something to the
slippery road still squeezing the bat
like he’s the one in pain and always has been.
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