Volta

“…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.

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