Pain stands unchallenged
beneath the body's grey canvas –
fieldwise, battle-ready – shrill

The rain's slow march across the wasteland
dismantles all orders of turn,
bestows sameness before the law
and a careless violence,
while Jorge Luis Borges' The Book of Sand
hisses and sparks
in the aftertaste of silent tongues

Pain's red command is a breathless beacon
in a body gone dark,
as I come to dwell within a withered jackal
with scorched eyes,
far from waterholes and forests

All numbers fold into 1

The now tilts over the rim

The only thought is angular, raw,
uncarved