You laugh when I tell you, but it is truth.
Countless physicians have affirmed it, according
to their various specialties. The oral surgeon,

We hiked up a canyon in the cold summer rain.
It was late in the day and on the mountain
across the canyon there was a section of

For the base I prefer a paste of unscented soap, egg white, & glue or gelatin, often peroxide—
never, as do some of my competitors, chewed muslin strips or (loathsome!) bits of animal tissue!
Though receiving but five dollars each night at the lyceum (a dollar at home),

And sleepless once when the needle slipped, he could not
say whether it pierced his hand or was at that moment 
born from it, stitching 

Long ago cloisters had the sacred Truth
of Holy Scripture painted on their walls.
These pictures warmed the hearts of men of faith
and eased the chill inside their stringent cells.

I still recall the little whitewashed lodging where
we lived in peace, just off a major thoroughfare.

Have you felt—I have—a pain that you enjoyed?
Do they say about you, too: “How strange he is!”
—I was dying, and a special agony

Remember, my soul, the thing we saw
  that lovely summer day?
On a pile of stones where the path turned off,

Once, indulgent lady—only once
  you lay your lustrous arm
on mine (against the darkness of my soul

Two warriors have engaged in combat: swords
Hash and clash together; blood is spilled.
Such passages of arms are the result