Wee hours dark-house walking
stumbling more like,
when you jam your toe hard.
You’d think you would know better
and land each step
with stalking-cat caution
better yet, flip on the damn lights
obviously.
But reality:
You’re gonna stub your toe
a dozen or more times in an average lifespan
just the way things go.
Howl with pain.
Mother-fuck the darkness
through clenched teeth.
Wake the dog, who wakes the wife,
who screams, What the hell?
Nothing, you scream back
angrily, which she doesn’t deserve
but hey, you’re angry
as you flex it back and forth
assessing damage.
Breaks do happen
put you in a boot, or least a pronounced limp
and a few weeks of explaining
what a klutz you can be.
Usually though, just hurts like hell
and for that short stretch of your life
the toe becomes the thing you talk about
incessantly to anyone who cares,
which no one does.
And face it you wouldn’t either
if it wasn’t your toe.
Then there is this:
A friend once worked as a trashman
and after their routes
his crew would gather back at the landfill
watching a crane grab mouthfuls of trash
to dump with other trash --
a thing these guys did, while smoking.
So, crane’s clutch opens, and a
bright red ball spills out
like the ones we used for kickball.
This one dude bolts forward
gives it good boot just as it’s touching down.
Turns out
it was a bowling ball.
Took more than a dozen pins to reconstruct that foot
best the doctors could, which wasn’t very good at all.
Which is all to say
things could be worse.
Surely other darker troubles
are lining up at your doorstep.
Menacing shit.
Unspeakable stuff.
Way worse than that throbbing toe
you stubbed yet again.
— SCOTT WESTCOTT
Scott Westcott is a poet and writer living in Erie, Pennsylvania. He is a recent winner of the Earth Amulet Poetry Prize. His work often focuses on nature — both human and otherwise.