Some kind of frozen fear
Injects the heart, inoculates it
Against the truth of love.
Like childbirth, we must forget
Pain, and the ragged flesh
Surrounding such tender parts.
Time is a local anesthetic
Finally active in the wound.
It slows to freezing,
So nothing but unknowing
Shivers in the scar.
Still, that old sign subsides
Only to be awoken,
And the surfeit of desire
Will ask again for numbing.
