In that brief instant

When surety retreats to shadows,
tenuous and mewling like a frightened child
that in the creeping dark sees monsters
and in a fetal shivering ball refuses
what assurance reason offers -
in that time between the second hand's
slow grinding pulsing on,
when the low thud of eardrums echoes,
drowning out each labored breath,
and the future seems as distant
as one blade of grass from another
in the scale economy of a flea
on the back of a mongrel universe -
in that moment of uncertainty,
the wounded soul heals
and by its scars is grown.

01 NOV 2008