other poem

premise

beauty being the press,
as if of two palms,
of pain onto pleasure,

the nature of the pressure
being such
that they turn into
each other

by turning in
toward themselves:
a strained
homecoming.


this is how pain
looked at herself
as if into a mirror,

seeing all she had discarded
become all she ever
would love--

she would have cracked
from side to side

if beauty,
like a bitter taste,
had not held her
bound together--
if beauty,
in a blind
home-coming,
to herself
had not bound herself
ever-closer.