The Carbuncle 

I haven’t told anybody but

I’ve had a carbuncle

ripening on the the back

of my head for weeks,

like a fetus poking

its finger through the skin

of a red balloon. 

I am that balloon

trying to pass a stone.

I guess I should be grateful

its not on my face for

the whole world to see.

I prefer my suffering

in silence,

hidden beneath my hair.

Besides, everyone would

sure to mistake it

for a wound,

when in fact

it is my art.

All my pain

has been coming

to a head.

At night

I use my bed pillow

as a compress

hoping for the Rorschach stain

to discharge

and leave its 

beautiful mark.

I feel

a ripening is coming

and I am 

running out of time.

My body strains to release

its mounting

sands

like grit to a pearl;

I am the hunchback

of my own private

Notre dame.

What will I do

if my sorrows

were to pass?

Who will or would I be?

My life is 

a sideways

hourglass,

clock without hands,

my heart steeped in prayer

inside a cathedral

of suspended animation.

Progress is now on foot

as I walk the desert sands

looking for something

tantamount to

a father

missing in action.

Every pearl begins

as just this sort of cyst,

pushing at the 4th wall

between night 

and the burgeoning

poem

of morning.

Today I woke up

weeping for the world.

What with this one’s death

and that one’s shame,

I put my art to use.

Peter Valentyne

July 19th, 2020