(cracked asphalt, image by Public Domain Pictures, on Pixabay)
“Unless the Lord had been my help,
my soul had almost dwelt in silence.”
Psalm 94:17
The hard road
reaches up through foot and ankle, calf and knee,
grips them in a crush of burning, shakes them
like a tree in wind-rage,
relaxes to allow collapse, not enough to loose its hold,
the pinch and dig, hot wound radiates
slow motion red.
Sometimes it just slams the sole,
shockwaves like a quake of pain,
shifting plates, tectonic pangs, jut above the surface.
Will anguish surge and simmer till it melts the leg?
Agony encase, dismantle it along the way?
“Unless the Lord...” “Unless the Lord...” “Unless the Lord...”
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Cindy Bousquet Harris is a poet, a licensed marriage and
family therapist, and the editor of Spirit Fire Review. Her
poems can be found, or are forthcoming, in Nostos,
MacQueen’s Quinterly, Pomona Valley Review, Clamor,
and in several anthologies. Cindy lives in Southern California
with her husband and their children. You can contact her at:
May 2021 issue