Extremities

Yesterday I feared
the darkness
of the earth I must become,
the heaviness of earth
during that becoming.

Today I grieve
for the human curve
of hills
and the unlearned endings
of all the stories.

Which is worse, that fear
or this grieving?
I move between them
as I moved between
two hurts

when as a child
I dug my nails into the palm
of my right hand,
drawing blood, to fool
the broken bone in the left.

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