CARRY A STONE

today
is a sick day.
I am sick and I am sickened
by sunlight
and sorrow.

this is something
every real estate agent
pole vaulter
registered nurse
bank teller
and president endures
as the world turns
with relentless drudgery

and churns
with equatorial precision
as the assassin sharpens
kitchen knives in the dark

and that woman
the one who wrote all those books
walks into a fearless river surge
with rocks in her pockets.

today I am
weighed down
not by a single stone
but with apprehension
as a carnival rolls into town
blandly offering amusements
against a wind
of human travail

while I lean
into eternity.