Acts of Vexation
By Pam Rehm
The only thing under the sun
I can run to
is Ecclesiastes
for there is nothing gathered into one self
that can be kept
Want is humbled by death
as every purpose manifests it
Feeling this all my life
a piercing fright
gathers in the stomach's pit
This is it and this is not the end
of the road
for even despair is a kind of goad
to wisdom
The beauty of the world
over one's own anguish
The day that I lost all feeling
I was both a Fool and a Goddess
Copyright Credit: Pam Rehm, "Acts of Vexation" from Small Works. Copyright © 2005 by Pam Rehm. Reprinted with the permission of Flood Editions.
Source: Small Works (Flood Editions, 2005)