Kantak Shani Surprise: your foot so capable in climbing Grows red grows pain and stumbles on the hill path Each step digs deep the thorn cannot be pulled The other hikers try to twist it out: Then rest then herbal cures and sound advice And nothing changes agony not abstract: A spine-shape sure a shock that shock is lasting Hill-summit there Means shelter love and comfort means the goal (Or hides the next high summit further on) Will you quit habitat of air and terra Fail down the hill to ocean where no weight Of body presses on the punctured flesh Evade the gravity that widens wounds Float now directionless no goal but stasis Abandon vertical farewell to height Let liquidly the thorn succumb displacement Propelled by inner motion not by outer And whirlpool-flung past homelands sound or rescue Step then on island still some limping tender An island with no summit shelter comfort But where your feet can learn again to stand.
Laura Sheahen has published poems in Four Way Review, Posse Review, and other journals in the US and UK. Her poetry book The Genie Smiles was printed in India. She lives in Tunisia.
Amethyst Review 