An Injury So Silent

Underneath all the spent
casings of all our difficult
words, hidden in these piles
of forgotten antecedents and
consequences, we dig slowly
at the scabs of those wounds
made grievous not by placement
or depth, but the hands who
delivered them.

Unearthed in the shallow
light of days without the
fortitude to fully develop,
we examine the remnants
of hard hurts given by the
loved and respected, left
spinning slow in the
vortexian aftermath of
disagreeing so absolutely
with those who've spoken
good wisdom in the past,
wondering who's blind
between the us and them
of it, wondering if there
still are those rights and
wrongs we learned of in
the lower grades and upon
the knees of our ancestors.

Elbow deep in the unreasoning
dirt, we call out as the branded
beast does as hot iron draws
the mark upon its hide, here
transfigured into abstraction
and an injury so silent and
stealthy upon the flesh, how
we are betrayed to doubt of
absolutes, fact sliding like
watercolors moving with the
gutter's flow in the direction
of the storm drain, belief
lost like athletic highs when
the sweat has faded, wisdom
dethroned in a wash of angry,
contradictory words, some of
which must needs be lies,
but whose collective rumor
builds a poison tree that
bears only bitter, unbelieving
fruit.