I am the log the river shakes downstream
when the helmsman turns on pulsing disco
and mechanical rowers chant pins and needles,
pins and needles. I’m 100% sure those are the words
until they become friends in need and friends in need and into the chute I'm sent.
The periscope mirror above my face
to ease claustrophobia doesn’t fool my mind.
I sense the lethal weight of magnets
closing round my brain. I churn with the noise
that will transform secrets of my dark tissue
into silent psychedelic imagery.
I become lumber run through the mill,
hammered, sawed, planed, and drilled,
bolted and drilled again, vibration after vibration
in a chilled room with a useless sheet
tossed over my legs—
a preview of my own autopsy?
A wet prick of dye announces Act II.
An intercom voice asks are you all right?
I say yes despite numb fingers, dizziness
of holding still, breathing minutes away through—pins
and needles, friends in need and—this construction project
of me somewhere between alive and dead.
Published in Songs of Eretz