720. of open wounds

Hands bloodied, he sat, the handle of the hammer growing darker in the dying and he wondered of their death, those red blood cells forced from his hands and he wondered of Tom, of the lash, of his son, forced to watch.

To the sun or the river, in either direction, pain. The sun burrowed rays in his forehead and his pulpy hands ached in the stitching of lacerations, but everywhere, pain. There was a breeze. It stung like bees, a howling of open wound, company perhaps, for the wounds not seen, not healed, forever unknown by any other than he who carries the burden in a pair of shoes made for one. 

Out here, under the sun, among eddies of breeze and the scent of hued whores of petal and leaf, was the peace of pain not judged, of wounds allowed to flow, as the river, without question. And he thought that maybe, if he could just stay here, in the blistering heat, of sweat and blood and wood and nail, of thought layering thought, that maybe time could erode the edges of his memory, bring some ablution unseen, as his pain, unseen, as his vision these last two years, unseen. 

But he knew better. And they would come and he would go and nothing would be changed.

Extended commentary (and a reading)