Core

When what’s at the center
is a black, leaking hole
at that point
there's not much to know
No man-made chemicals—
neither dispersants nor antacids—
can stop the flow
And then if all the muscle goes
into the plugging of it
there’s not much left
in the way of energy
or intuition
or intellectual heft
to address questions of origin
or birth
least of all matters
of self
or worth
~~~~
I have been suffering terribly from writers block for over a week now and have not fulfilled my partial NaPoWriMo pledge! I've decided, however, to not beat myself up about this any further, and just see how many poems I can post over the next few days. This poem is a response to one of Big Tent Poetry's prompts from last week, which asked us to write about what is at the core or center of something. This brought up memories of some emergency surgery I had a few years back, and I went from there to this...