In Praise of a Splinter

Between the ridges of a fingerprint,

A microscopic javelin:

You have to hold up the finger

Against a dark background

Even to see it.

And yet, each time you brush it,

The whole body thrums with a

Warning, a plea:

A need.

You ask yourself:

How can something so small

So alter my outlook?

How can the barely visible

Be so unbearably insistent?

Your day is filled with such splinters.

Do you not see how finely woven you are --

How the plucking of one nerve

Awakens you to the vulnerability,

The sensitivity,

The dangerous thrill

Of simply

Being?

My splinter was the shaft

That split open my slumber.

The tiny opening it made

Let a world pour in.

i thank it.

--Mr. Gobley