The Ghazal of What Hurt

Peter Cole

Pain froze you, for years—and fear—leaving scars.

But now, as though miraculously, it seems, here you are

walking easily across the ground, and into town

as though you were floating on air, which in part you are,

or riding a wave of what feels like the world’s good will—

though helped along by something foreign and older than you are

and yet much younger too, inside you, and so palpable

an X-ray, you’re sure, would show it, within the body you are,

not all that far beneath the skin, and even in

some bones. Making you wonder: Are you what you are—

with all that isn’t actually you having flowed

through and settled in you, and made you what you are?

The pain was never replaced, nor was it quite erased.

It’s memory now—so you know just how lucky you are.

You didn’t always. Were you then? And where’s the fear?

Inside your words, like an engine? The car you are?!

Face it, friend, you most exist when you’re driven

away, or on—by forms and forces greater than you are.