Not Vanilla: 2011

Some cold winter nights
when it's dark and snowing
I rub tiger balm all over my collar bone.
Smear it on my neck, too,
right before I sleep.

Not because it's now flu season,
not because of sore muscles,
but because on the oinment tin

it says:

“Relieves aches and pains.”

I know it's talking about a bodily ache,

the kind you can rub some mystery balm on

and the pain will seemingly vaporize into the air

right along with the menthol.

I've got an ache

that won't go away. Not with menthol

or writing

or company.

Not with time or touch or

anything else.

I wanna smear it away so bad,

in one evening. I want to be heard

in the day of my trouble.

There's a better balm

than a tiger, a Lion.

You don't use him to make it better,

but his aroma is better, so I wait and I'm waiting.

And in the waiting I put on tiger balm,

and I put it on thick, to remind myself that

one can see goodness in

the land of the living.

There is such a thing as a problem

that the God of Jacob

eradicates before twenty four hours is up,

even before the end of this poem.

(Psalm 20:1 and 27:13)

Not Vanilla