The only really good pain
Is the kind you give yourself.
Like putting red-cold thighs
Into a tub of hot water.
This morning I ran in the crackle fresh snow
Of mid-January,
Not to feel pain,
But to feel known
By something other than a lover
A few times, I stopped, just long enough to
Fix my clothes into a place where
Nothing was exposed.
Where I stopped just long enough
To feel the sweat chill at the base of my pony tail.
I am no new animal
And it comforts me
To know that I’m one of a
Billion living things
That sought out a snow cold morning,
When a warm den is the only thing
Keeping us from connecting to the everything,
Or the nothing.
(Depending on what you’re after.)
I’m glad that it can make us laugh,
Or cackle,
Or chirp,
On a morning where warmth
Is not the only thing.
LAUREN KRAFT 