Coping Well II

I don’t want to be told I’m doing a good job

in labor: what my body is doing is

against will

against reason

what my body is doing

is a trainwreck of an idea,

for which I deserve as much credit as

beating my heart.

Complimenting labor always seems

condescending, a strange distraction:

how should I respond?

And in this massive state of indignity,

to think of a polite response

only reminds me

how impolite this state of almost-born.

If I could help “doing well” –

to will or unwill it—

what would that even mean?

Withhold the prisoner on the verge of

making a break for it?

Hardly a prudent plan.

On the other hand,

if I could grant him clemency,

release these prison doors,

distribute personal effects,

I’d be glad to help:

sign the papers,

look the other way…

But I am neither

guard nor bailiff:

I am the earth he tunnels through,

part of nature in this moment,

part of quaking,

part of being

not choosing,

nothing moral,

no act of the will.

Only being broken,

being stormed,

being flooded,

engulfed,

separated.

Say I’m coping well.