11 The Love Issue · 11 of 12
Although I tried to stop for Life,she wouldn’t let me pausebut opened Earth behind my heelsexposing hungry saws.
She fit me with a saddle next and hitched me to her coach then forced me down to crawl around—a cross of man and roach.
I hardly moved ahead enough to keep the blades of steel from doing more than splitting shoes or puncturing a heel.
Whenever, having borne too much,I’d lie on sawing ground,She’d conjure up a paradise and have me look around.
She’d vow we’d reach the scenes ahead if just we kept our course,then give a cheerful “giddy up”to me, her human horse.
But every step upon the road would see the goal recede and move me further off the path of other things I need.
“Though better days may seem so far, your time to die’s not near,”she said, perhaps, to calm me down but only stoked my fear.
Then Life revealed the awful truth I wish had been a lie:those saws could mangle flesh and limbsbut never make me die.