I feel flat lined, on this flat earth
now and then, when I follow the wild pigs’ path
into the thorny mesquite, the scrub oak,
I see a spike on my graph
when I find their fresh droppings,
dung still steaming on morning’s crisp ground,
perhaps I have found, something to make
my heart pump enough to register a blip,
a puny peak on the scrolling page
true, this is not
the rubber tree jungle where
I first learned terror and trembling unto death
where I hunted other prowling prey, who had no sharp fangs or tusks
to tear my young flesh, but could, with a fateful finger flick
spill my rushing red blood in the puke brown soup
of the rice paddies
those days now are seen
faintly, through a milky haze,
though for others it seems, recalled
at night, in dread dreams
I do not share their nightmares--if I did
I would not wander into the winter woods
to face my foe, to hear its gray growling, hoping
its charge will be quick on this flat land,
and that the thumping in my chest
will paint a beautiful sharp line
on the pallid parchment