Climbing Wall

Mike falls to the ground

compressing his body,

absorbing all of his 180 pounds

on his toe tips.

Is compassion a thought or a do?

Or is it just a bee sting since the bee doesn't need

poison only for the purpose of stinging?

I let go of my rope,

its hard memory now

burned into my skin.

I smell singed peanuts.

Willed to prevent horror,

my fingers

form four blisters. White is

the color of waiting.

Waiting for the present in the heart's inner space,

Waiting for an anticipated plummet.

The facts are usually arrayed in such

a manner that that there is significance

and meaning in all of them.

I shake them loose,

my body

convulsing in daggers.

Now it is true that the eye is present in a very

mysterious way in bee poison.

A supervisor runs up the stairs,

asking what went wrong.

All I know is that

facts do not become the truth

until you love them.

Later, my soft fingers encased in peas,

the frozen plastic little solace

to my failed belay.

I drive home in Mike's Band-Aids,

using only my pinky and thumb,

wondering if Mike thinks that

the quality of mercy is not strain'd,

it droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

upon the place beneath.