“…my ode to as much as possible.” ~ D. Bonta
I’m told I was unlovely as a child—
homely stripling with scabbed legs, crooked teeth—
given to various ailments: asthmatic wheeze,
one gash above my lip that marred my smile;
blistering hives, a wart they tried to file
off my finger and excise with a squeeze
of some kind of acid. And though my knees
felt lunar, my budding mind found fertile
rooms with other kinds of mirrors: quickly,
I learned to lose myself in books, whole worlds
breathing beneath awareness, where no one
told me I would never this or that— Pity
a kind of bread to change the smallest bird:
plumped up by rain, dry crumb no longer dun.
In response to Via Negativa: The life.