Start on a gurney’s white starched sheets and lay
how he says and show what he asks and then
his finger through tissue and fat digs
to tension and hurt the pressure of healing.

End to a world tilted off.
Every sitting is how to sit?
Every standing is how to stand?
But joints can neither find comfort nor return.

Pray to pollutions
to block the bent structures of body
through faith in water acid alchemy.
Swallow, yet it scrapes the proud pleasure.

Start on starched-white sheets
and wait for the healing to come.
The healing comes and the pain does not go.

End to a world tilted off,
not able anymore to accommodate its slouch.
Stand at a slant, hip pinches straight.
Sit at a slump, leg pains to walk.
Walk head down passing the hidden
in cowering formation of chemical ignoring
while numbness spreads from the crimping spine.
His finger is pointing.
Raise knowledge and pull straight strength
stabbed out of groveling
as if all these were merely flesh and bone.