Weighed In.
(after Seamus Heaney)
The 56lb weight. A solid metaphor
for all that needs to be
lifted, balanced, carried off
from the troubled door on the street
to the one at the end that some say
has hope as its knocker.
I hoped I could lift one, once
when I was a farmer-boy,
fourteen and full of bravado,
almost pulling elbows
from cartilage, spine
from pelvis, mind blown
clean out of the skull.
As a man I can carry two,
one in each hand, balanced
and strenuously hung from
squared-off shoulders.
I stagger them along that same street,
but still I can’t find that door.
They never let go, these
56lb, mind-crushing anchors.
8/11/26