The worm on the patio
is bent like a yanked roofing nail.
Glommed with little ants,
it has no nerve center
by which to feel the pain.
But let’s not make poetry
of the lives we couldn’t lead.
You never have to frame a man.
The truth will always suffice.
Or so Willie Stark tells us
in All the King’s Men.
A worm is like a gulf
behind a bight of sand;
it rides inside the bellies
of the swells.
It’s brave to ride it out
while knowing that fortune
and fate must be the same.
Cal Freeman is the author of the book Fight Songs. His writing has appeared in many journals including Southword, The Moth, The Poetry Review, Southwest Review, The Journal, and Hippocampus.