Just above my eye, the one

I nearly lost the sight in

as a boy, battered

and beaten for being wrong

in the criminal place

of Cooper School fields,

a foe hiding in the enemy,

that is

where the headache has lain,

a small worm perhaps growing fat,

cultivating more room

in which to sneak through

the mind fields

of veins and vanity;

a small chobble here, a bite

there, slowly wearing me away

to nothing,

a headache that is all it is.

Ian D. Hall 2017