To make something clean,
You
must understand
that something else
will have to become dirty,
leave a mark, a smudge,
a smear
elsewhere…
My mind keeps whispering
clean and purge
the pain
in the leg, the sciatic nerve,
the fearsome ache in the neck
and spine, and groin, and eyes
and take a cloth to the arm
and leave my mark there…
over
and over
again,
till